


i'm all about savin' your world

by seeingrightly



Category: Kim Possible (Cartoon), Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/F, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-06 04:43:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 44,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12204099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: Stiles Stilinski's life is not exactly normal to begin with - he kind of saves the world on the regular under the pseudonym Ron Stoppable, alongside his best friend Allison Argent, aka Kim Possible. No big. Then one day people in Beacon Hills start to go missing, and Allison's aunt Kate comes back to town, and a couple of Stiles's classmates start acting super strange because, uh, werewolves are a thing. But it's nothing he and Allison can't handle. Probably.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote a few chapters of this fic way back in 2012, added to it in 2015 after i stopped watching teen wolf, and for some reason decided to cope with the show ending (EVEN THOUGH I DON'T WATCH ANYMORE) by finishing the fic. i don't know, man.
> 
> thanks to [alicia](http://rocketfool.tumblr.com) for literally dealing with this fic for five years and [melissa](http://theverytiredgirl.tumblr.com) for editing the shit out of it in this current year.
> 
> title is from [the very enjoyable "say the word" kim possible song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiqfezyN0Rg). i have no idea how much sense this fic is going to make if you don't know anything about kim possible, but also, why don't you know anything about kim possible?

There wasn’t exactly a landing pad anywhere on the roof of Beacon Hills High, but they’d utilized the gym’s roof as one so many times that by this point, Stiles was surprised the school hadn’t gotten a license, or at least a makeshift sign, or something. Allison’s dark hair blew into Stiles’s face as the chopper landed, and she pulled a hair tie off her wrist to twist it into some fancy braid thing. Stiles was glad he shaved his head. It gave bad guys less to tug on, and it never got stuck to his eyeballs.

“Good timing,” Allison shouted over the whirring of the propellers.

Stiles raised his eyebrows, waiting for the punch line he could see forming in the curve of her smile and the appearance of her dimples.

“I know you didn’t study for that English test,” she laughed.

“It’s not my fault I get motion sickness,” Stiles yelped. “I don’t know how you can read in any kind of moving vehicle. And saving Cincinnati from Dr. Finstock last night felt a bit more important than rereading  _ The Great Gatsby _ for like a fourth time.”

Allison bumped her shoulder into his before bounding toward the helicopter. As she hopped up into the machine, she turned back to Stiles.

“You would have done fine anyway,” she said, giving him a hand up.

They dumped their backpacks underneath their seats. Allison’s made its usual obtrusive clanging sounds as the gadgets inside met the floor of the copter, but Stiles’s just kind of made a muffled thump. He always forgot which backpack to shove things into at his locker between classes, so his green canvas one was a mix of grappling hooks and notebooks. His copy of  _ The Great Gatsby  _ was probably in there now. It had led to him losing more than a few homework assignments in the process of saving the world or whatever, but usually he got avoided getting detention on those occasions. Usually. He’d started keeping a set of his uniform - cargo pants with lots of pockets, long-sleeved black shirt, thick-hided gloves, and sturdy boots - in both backpacks.

As Stiles sat down and strapped into his seat, Allison leaned into the front to talk to the pilot.

“Thank you so much for getting here on such short notice, Ms. Morrell.”

“I never mind helping you kids out,” Morrell replied. “Everyone down at Beacon County News wanted to thank you for when you stopped Señor Senior, Senior and his son from taking over the station last month.”

“Oh, it’s no big.” Flashing a bright smile, Allison plopped down next to Stiles. “You want to review for the test so we’ll be ready to make it up after school today?”

As the helicopter took off, Allison’s phone chimed with Danny’s special ringtone.

“What’s the sitch?” she asked as she accepted Danny’s video chat request. 

He seemed to be hiding in a back corner of the library, and he glanced down to where he undoubtedly had his little baby laptop and his tablet spread out in front of him.

“I’ve got a lock on the location,” Danny whispered. 

He’d probably snuck out of class – he had calculus now and would be just fine, and anyway the teacher was in love with him, because who wasn’t. For the same reason, he could do pretty much whatever he wanted in the library, as long as he was quiet. The privilege did  _ not _ extend to Stiles.

Allison showed the coordinates to Morrell, and they set off.

“There’s this summer camp called Camp Wannaweep a few towns away,” Danny said. “Didn’t you used to go there, Stiles?”

Stiles moaned and covered his face with his hands.

“That place was the  _ worst _ ,” he said. “I only went there once. I swear the lake was toxic. After my first year I refused to go back.”

“Good news,” Danny said with fake cheer. “There seems to be some kind of swamp monster rampaging through the woods. Good thing it’s not summer, because there’s no kids around for it to harm. But it’s trapping a bunch of rabbits and deer and even a wolf in this weird slime substance.”

“A wolf?” Stiles asked. “There’s no way.”

“What do you mean there’s no way?” Allison asked.

“Stiles, I have pictures,” Danny said, and then he sent through a few. 

Danny’s face was replaced with a picture of a gray wolf trapped in a mound of green – well, it had to be slime. The wolf didn’t look happy about it.

“There’s no way,” Stiles repeated. “Wolves haven’t been in California in something like sixty years, except for a freak incident where some appeared a few years ago in Beacon Hills. They vanished again pretty quickly though.”

“Why do you even know that?” Danny asked.

“I got a little lost on Wikipedia when I was supposed to be researching for my  _ Of Mice and Men _ paper,” Stiles said defensively.

“Have there been sightings of the actual swamp monster?” Allison interrupted. 

“Only alleged ones,” Danny said. “The people who maintain the camp off-season and patrol the woods around it haven’t gotten a good look, so we don’t know its strengths or weaknesses. The biohazard team is aware of the situation, though. They’ll be meeting you there. So you guys just have to catch this thing. This morning one of the owners of the camp got trapped. That’s why they sent for you two.”

“Are they okay?” Allison asked.

“She’s still alive. But she’s acting weird. All the animals who got hit started going rabid and had to be contained, and it’s like the same thing is happening to this woman. And then she washed her hands a little while ago and started turning green and scaly. They’re not sure what’s going on, so the biohazard team is going to take her in too. I’d say whatever you do, don’t let that swamp monster or its slime touch you.”

“You think it’s human? Or used to be?” Stiles asked.

“You tell me,” Danny replied.

“We will,” Allison answered, completely serious. “Let us know if you get any more info, Danny. Thanks for the update.”

“No problem, KP.”

The helicopter lowered itself into a clearing in the woods.

“This good, Kim?” Morrell asked.

“Thank you for the ride,” Allison replied, grabbing her backpack and hopping out. Stiles followed, and they both moved away, shielding their eyes as the helicopter took off again.

“Well, that definitely scared off anything that was in the area,” Stiles said.

“Anything that’s not trapped,” Allison corrected him, pointing opposite the clearing. There was a squirrel caught in a small hill of green sludge, which looked kind of like really mossy Jell-O. “Don’t get too close.”

They inched toward the squirrel, which was wriggling and making a disarming hissing sound. Allison pulled out an innocuous lipstick tube, pointing it toward the squirrel. Its eyes were glowing green, and its fur was patchy. Stiles picked up an acorn.

“Hey, buddy,” he called. “Who wants a nut? I bet you do.”

“Ron,” Allison said. When he looked over, she had her game face on.

“What, Kim?” he asked, to show her that he was taking things seriously. He turned back to the squirrel. “Do you want an acorn?”

He tossed it right at the squirrel, which hissed and spit a glob of slime at Stiles. He yelped and jumped backwards as Allison flipped off the cap of the lipstick tube, spraying a stream of pink elastic goo at the squirrel. The goo constricted around it and it fell on its side, twitching and hissing.

“Did it get you?” Allison asked. 

Stiles inspected his arms. His sleeves were tucked into his gloves, which were now stained and smelled like ungodly, probably toxic lake water.

“I’m good.” He looked toward the trees, where there was a trail of slime along the grass and dangling off of a few branches. “I think it went this way.”

Their boots squelched in mud and goo as they trudged through the woods, following the trail of slime.

“It’s probably by the water, if that’s its power source,” Allison said. “That scent that’s coming off of your gloves? It’s getting stronger. I think the trail is leading us toward the lake. Do you remember how to get to it?”

“I always refused to swim in it. I wasn’t the only one. Lots of kids wouldn’t go in there. And we weren’t allowed in the woods much, either.”

“So that’s a no, you don’t know if we’re going in the right direction?” Allison asked, smirking at him.

“I didn’t say that,” Stiles huffed. His pants caught on a batch of slime stuck to the bark of a tree and he tripped, nearly face-planting into a puddle of the goo. “What do you think the monster is?”

“The article Danny sent us on the way over said that animals have getting being trapped like this since just after summer ended. It could be a camper or something. I wonder if anyone went missing this past summer. I’ll text Danny to look.”

Allison, of course, was able to walk through the woods and text without stumbling at all. Stiles hadn’t started training  _ that _ much later than Allison had, back in middle school. She didn’t have too much expertise on him. She was just naturally more coordinated. Stiles sometimes liked to blame it on her years of gymnastics and archery, while Stiles had just flailed around on the lacrosse field when he was allowed to play.

He reached into his backpack and pulled out his modified Taser. It used to be one of his dad’s police Tasers, which have a much longer reach than standard Tasers, and which the sheriff had given to Stiles for self defense long before this whole agent thing even started. He and Danny had altered it, and turned it into a kind of stun gun/Taser combo so that it would work at close range or long distance. One end was for direct contact and the other could repel someone from far off. Plus he had painted it blue.

Allison had some kind of bright purple cattle prod in her backpack, so.

“Danny says that this past year, a kid named Matt Daehler drowned in the lake. That’s the only person.”

“Wait,” Stiles said. “Daehler? I’m pretty sure he was here the year I came to Camp Wannaweep. He couldn’t swim. We did arts and crafts together because we wouldn’t go in the water.”

“Yep,” said a disembodied, scratchy voice. “You made your daddy a very pretty lanyard, Stilinski.”

Stiles jumped, aiming his Taser into the trees where he thought the voice was coming from. Next to him, Allison readied her crossbow with its electrocuting darts. Stiles hadn’t even seen her take it out of its case, which was identical to the case she kept her flute in. One day she was going to grab the wrong one before a mission.

“Matt?” Stiles called.

“Don’t shoot,” Matt said, jumping off a tree branch and landing in front of them on the forest floor. “I’m unarmed.” 

He grinned as he held up his hands in a placating gesture. Matt looked nothing like Stiles remembered. He was coated in goo and bits of plant life. It looked like seaweed, which definitely shouldn’t grow in a wooded lake like the one Stiles could now see a few yards behind Matt.

“Don’t lie to us,” Allison said. “That slime you’re secreting  _ is _ your weapon.”

“Uh huh,” Matt said, sounding unimpressed. He shot a huge glob at Allison, knocking her crossbow out of her hand. “Don’t move. You either, Stilinski. Or... I suppose I should be calling you Stoppable now? The stage names are adorable, really.”

Stiles lowered the Taser to his side but didn’t drop it.

“The lake did this to you?”

“You always did say it was toxic.” Matt laughed bitterly.

“But you can’t swim. Why’d you go in?”

“I didn’t choose to,” Matt yelled, the saliva flying from his mouth landing on Stiles’s and Allison’s shirts. Other than their faces, the rest of their skin was shielded. “They threw me in. They knew I couldn’t swim and they threw me in! I didn’t drown, but I did turn into  _ this _ .”

“Let us help you,” Allison said, her voice steady. “We know scientists who can try to reverse whatever the water did to you – ”

“Who says I want to be fixed? Why would I let you take this power away from me?”

“What are you going to do, sit around sticking bunnies to trees until people show up next summer?” Stiles asked.

“They need to pay, Stilinski. They need to pay for what they did to me.” 

Matt pointed at Stiles and Allison – it was very dramatic – but no slime dripped from his finger this time. He was drying off. Prompting the monologue was always their first move for a reason.

“Sorry,” Stiles said, “but we kind of hear speeches like that a lot.” 

He gestured with his right hand as he said so, as though he didn’t remember he was holding his Taser in that hand. Matt startled and tried to hock a loogie of slime at it, but he came up dry. Instead he choked, leaning over as he dry heaved toward the grass. Stiles took the opportunity to Taser Matt, and Allison picked her crossbow up off the ground, aiming it at Matt again.

“The lipstick!” she shouted.

Stiles scrambled for his own tube of elastic constricting lipstick – Danny refused to make him something more discreet because he thought Stiles’s squawking about it was funny – and fired at Matt.

He was still trapped in the pink substance, struggling and cursing, when the biohazard team called Stiles and asked for their location. A couple of guys in Hazmat suits showed up to carry Matt back to their truck, and Stiles and Allison followed.

“I will get my revenge!” Matt shouted as they placed him in the back of the truck.

“Sure you will, buddy,” Stiles called. “Maybe they’ll let you make lanyards wherever you get detained.”

One of the Hazmat suit guys came over to the pair.

“Thank you for catching him for us, Ms. Possible, Mr. Stoppable. We can give you two a ride to wherever you need to go, if you like. It’s the least we could do.”

“Sure thing,” Allison said with a smile. She and Stiles followed the man to one of their trucks. “Ready for that English test now?”

“We’ll see,” Stiles replied. He glanced down at his phone. “Oh, hey, we’ll make it back to school just in time for lunch.”

-

Stiles got caught on the lunch line behind two people who were arguing at a whisper. The girl was in Stiles’s English class – Kira. She wore a lot of nerdy t-shirts, and she and Stiles sometimes muttered comments about the rest of the class to one another. The boy had been on the lacrosse team when Stiles used to play, but his asthma kept him from doing much. His name was McSomething, Stiles was pretty sure. He tried to remember what the kid’s name was in order to keep himself from eavesdropping. Their school was small, and pretty much everybody knew everybody, but even in senior year there were still a few kids who managed to fly far enough under the radar that Stiles didn’t know their names.

When Stiles reached up to grab a tray, it slipped out of his grasp and clanged against the metal counter. McSomething flinched away and covered his ears.

“Sorry,” Stiles said, even though it hadn’t actually been that loud.

“It’s fine,” Kira said, suddenly more perky than he’d ever seen her.

“He okay?” Stiles asked, gesturing to McSomething, who was still bent over a little. 

It was like he was hungover or something. Now that Stiles was paying more attention, it seemed like he was squinting a little in the cafeteria’s fluorescent lighting.

“Yeah, he’s just feeling kind of sick,” Kira said, her smile seeming more genuine this time. “I think he managed to catch that bug.”

“I didn’t know there was a bug going around,” Stiles said, keeping his tone light. 

Kira was never able to lie to their teachers about missed homework assignments, and McSomething looked guilty as hell on her other side.

“Kira had it over the weekend,” McSomething said, not looking at Stiles as he spoke. “We must be the first ones to get it.”

“What was your name again?” Stiles asked. “We used to play lacrosse together, right?”

“Scott McCall. Yeah.” 

He was still facing the counter as they moved up to the food. Suddenly Scott paled and covered the lower half of his face with one of his hands, staring down at the food selections in some kind of mute horror.

“What?” Stiles asked as Scott gagged slightly. 

“The burgers,” Scott choked out between his fingers. “They just – they just smell really overcooked.”

“Oh,” Kira said, suddenly and loudly, clapping a hand over her face too. “You don’t smell that?”

Stiles took another step closer. Nothing smelled weird to him.

“Are you – ”

Before he could finish his question, Scott dropped his tray on the counter and took off, Kira following a second later. After a moment, Stiles picked up both of their trays and moved them off to the side. He didn’t choose a burger.

-

Danny stared at Stiles over his slice of pizza. He looked unimpressed, but that was nothing new. He took a bite and picked up his phone to go back to texting his boyfriend.

“What?” Danny asked. “Do you want us to, like, stalk the two of them in case it turns out that McCall was bitten by a radioactive spider or something?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles said. “It was just – whatever’s going on with them, it’s not normal. I have class with Kira every day and I’ve never seen her act that weird. McCall is on the lacrosse team with you, right?”

Danny sighed around another bite of pizza.

“Come on, Danny. Just keep an eye on him at practice, okay? And I’ll see if Kira does anything weird in English.”

Allison rested her chin on her hands and looked back and forth between them.

“What are we classifying as weird behavior, exactly, anyway?” she asked. “Because you do plenty of weird stuff during your classes, Stiles.”

“Very funny,” Stiles huffed, taking a vicious bite out of his chicken finger. “I’m telling you, it was like his senses were going haywire. She was definitely covering for him. And not very well, either. Peter Parker’s not far off, okay?”

“Fine,” Danny said. “Fine. But just because I know you won’t leave it alone if we don’t agree.”

“You’re so good to me,” Stiles said, resting his head on Danny’s shoulder.

“Don’t touch me,” Danny replied, shoving him off.

-

Stiles knew something was definitely up when Kira arrived at their English class and unsubtly shifted her chair as far away from Stiles’s as possible. When their teacher missed the corner of his desk, nearly falling over, Kira didn’t even make a comment or share a look with Stiles. Eventually, the pen she was fidgeting with flew out of her hands and landed by Stiles’s foot.

He leaned to hand it back to her, but didn’t let go.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Are you okay?”

She stared at him for a long moment, conflicted, and then she smacked his fingers with his other hand so that he let go of the pen, startled.

“Hey!” he hissed, louder this time, and then the bell rang.

Stiles stood up quickly, bracing one of his arms on her desk and boxing her in.

“Look,” he started, but Kira interrupted him.

“I’ll kick you,” she said, completely serious.

“Okay,” Stiles said, shifting out of the way immediately. “Look, I know we don’t really know one another that well, but I can tell something’s going on with you and Scott. Mainly Scott. But you know what it is.”

Kira stood up and grabbed her books and her bag, the same conflicted look from earlier on her face.

“I don’t really know what it is,” she said finally.

“Well, I might be able to help you, you know?” Stiles said. “I have resources. Like, super professional ones.” 

Stiles wiggled his fingers and smiled. He hoped it didn’t look as forced as it felt.

“That could be a threat,” Kira replied, lifting her chin. “I’m not gonna – let you ship Scott off to some lab or whatever.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Stiles said, a little desperately. “I can help you research whatever this is. Think about it, okay? I already know something’s going on, so you might as well.”

Kira bit her lip.

“We’ll see. I have to talk to Scott, okay? He doesn’t want to tell anyone.”

“Let me give you my number.”

“Everyone has your number,” Kira laughed. “Call you, beep you, if we need to reach you, right?”

“My regular number,” Stiles corrected, trying not to sound as awkward as he felt. 

“Okay,” Kira said after a long moment. “Thank you.”

Stiles just barely resisted fist-pumping as she handed over her phone.

-

Danny called Stiles and Allison as soon as he got home from lacrosse practice. Stiles answered the Skype voice conference, glad for the inevitable update. His Google searches on sudden enhanced hearing and vision were too vague to be helpful.

“Danny?” Allison asked. “This better be good. I just came up with a great thesis for my Charlemagne essay.”

“I don’t know if good is the right word for what McCall just pulled.” Danny sounded harassed. “Yesterday he didn’t move from the bench for most of practice, and when he did, he needed his inhaler almost immediately. Today, he was acting weird because of the whole enhanced hearing thing so Coach Barkin made him play, and he was…”

Danny trailed off, sounding unsettled.

“He was what?” Stiles asked.

“I don’t know how to describe it. He was all over the place, leaping around like he was doing some gymnastics routine, and he scored on me every single time.”

“What?” Allison asked, her tone sharp. “Was it because he was using techniques you haven’t seen before, or…”

Danny was a good goalie. If he knew someone’s style, they couldn’t score on him, so he usually went easy on their team during practices.

“He was too quick,” Danny said. “I couldn’t predict what moves he was going to make. I don’t think he could either, actually. It was like he was following his instincts.”

“Did anyone else comment on it?” Stiles asked.

“Coach Barkin talked about moving him to first line,” Danny said. “In the locker room some of the guys were wondering where McCall got his juice. And of course McCall could hear them. He booked it out of there pretty quickly. Seemed excited but confused.”

“Did you talk to Kira, Stiles?” Allison asked.

“I didn’t really get any more info about what’s going on, but I think I convinced her that she could come to me if she wanted to talk. Maybe this thing at practice will freak them out enough that she’ll call.”

“Keep researching now that we have more info,” Allison said. “Hopefully she’ll contact you, but either way we have to stay on top of this. They could be dangerous.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” Danny said. “Oh, one more thing. Scott’s eyes started glowing gold a few times when he was running toward me in the goal. I’m not sure what that means.”

“Pretty big detail to forget, Danny boy,” Stiles said.

“Sorry,” Danny replied drily. “I was distracted by McCall laying me out and then complimenting my aftershave.”

“It  _ is _ nice aftershave,” Stiles said.

Downstairs, the front door opened as Stiles’s dad came home.

“I have to go figure out dinner, guys,” he said. “I’ll let you know if I find anything or if Kira contacts me.”

“Later,” Danny said.

“Talk to you later,” Allison said, ending the conversation.

-

“Hey, Dad,” Stiles called as he stumbled down the stairs.

“Son,” the sheriff replied as he took off his coat and draped it over a chair at the kitchen table. “I hear you and Allison caught a swamp monster today.”

“Something like that,” Stiles replied. “Remember Camp Wannaweep?”

“Oh God,” the sheriff said, running a hand down his face. “I’m gonna need a drink if I need to hear about how you were actually right lo those many years ago.”

“Well, I was,” Stiles said quickly, before changing the subject. “You know what’s weird though? They found a wolf in the woods all the way over there.”

“Really?” the sheriff asked. “That’s the second town in the area I’ve heard of with reports of wolf sightings. You want pizza for dinner, kid?”

“Wait, second town?” Stiles asked. “There’s another where this is happening? Wait. No, we are not having pizza. If we’re ordering something, we’re ordering something healthy. What’s the first town?”

Stiles’s dad gave him a look.

“You know I’m not supposed to tell you these things, Stiles, even if you are some teenage agent thing. But I can be bribed. With pizza.”

“Dad!”

“I won’t even ask for pepperoni.”

“You’re the worst,” Stiles said, grabbing the phone. “What’s the first town?”

“The first town is this town.”

Stiles nearly dropped the phone.

“There were wolves spotted on the Beacon Hills preserve?”

“Yep. Now order the pizza. It’s almost seven. You know it always gets busy after seven.”

-

Stiles’s phone rang halfway through his fourth slice of pizza and second recorded episode of CSI. His dad liked to correct all of the mistakes that crime shows made, and Stiles liked to make fun of the stunts. He wasn’t exactly great at the stunts he got to pull in his actual life, but he definitely knew what was or wasn’t humanly possible. He liked to call bullshit on them. It made him feel better about his life.

The caller ID on his phone – his regular phone – said Kira.

“I have to get this,” he said around a mouthful of pizza.

“That’s not your Ron ringtone,” his dad said from his recliner, eyeing Stiles suspiciously over his plate.

“I let you have an extra slice,” Stiles replied.

“Touché,” the sheriff said. As Stiles ran for the stairs he added, “I’m not pausing this.”

“Hey,” Stiles answered, just barely managing to pick up the phone before it went to voicemail. “Sorry that took so long. What’s up?”

“Stiles?” Kira said. “Hi. I uh – I talked to Scott and – we decided that it would probably be for the best if we talked to you about what was going on? It’s just that we’re not really sure what else to do. And, you know, you fight evil and all that, so. And you already offered to help. I figure you’re our best bet.”

“Sure thing,” Stiles replied. “So… what do you guys want to do? We could meet up, or Skype, or something? I don’t know what’s easier for you guys.”

“Uh,” Kira said. “Scott’s not really available right now.”

“What do you mean he’s not available right now?”

“I mean I had to barricade him in my bathroom so that he wouldn’t eat my face off.”

“Oh.” Stiles blinked a few times. “So… Skype?”

“Sure,” Kira said. “What’s your Skype name?”

“It’s probably safer to use my business one for this,” Stiles answered. “It’s ron dot stoppable.”

“Of course it is,” Kira laughed. There was growling in the background. “I’m going to hang up now and call you on Skype in a minute, okay?”

“Sure,” Stiles replied, settling himself in front of his computer. 

A few seconds later, the notification popped up on his screen.

Kira was sitting in front of a computer, looking over her shoulder toward a closed door. She flinched as there was a loud bang, followed by a growl.

“We… disagreed about telling you what was going on and I had to lock him up,” she said, sounding apologetic, but not much.

“This sounds really dangerous, Kira,” Stiles said. “Why does he keep attacking you?”

“Okay, well, I was over at Scott’s last night - not like that!” Kira yelped, even though Stiles hadn’t reacted. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, I owed him a really good dare, and I dared him to go into the abandoned Hale house out in the woods.”

“It’s only been empty for, like, four years,” Stiles said. “And only because the Hales who  _ didn’t _ mysteriously disappear won’t live there but also won’t let the property be reclaimed or whatever.”

“All I know is it’s empty and it’s spooky,” Kira said, “and Scott tried to make me come with him because he’s a giant baby who doesn’t know how dares work. But I convinced him to go alone, which now I feel really bad about?”

“What happened?” Stiles prompted after a second.

“Scott says halfway there he got startled and dropped his inhaler. And then suddenly he heard growling, and Scott fell down this hill while running away and then I guess he got knocked out?”

“Okay,” Stiles said slowly.

“I went to look for him after like twenty minutes of him not answering his phone, so he wasn’t even out for that long,” Kira said. “I found him unconscious at the bottom of the hill. We don’t really… know what happened. All his injuries healed really quickly? And his senses are heightened, and he’s extra strong and fast, and… well, when he gets mad his eyes start glowing and he gets fangs and more hair and stuff. So.”

“You are  _ not _ telling me Scott’s been turned into a werewolf,” Stiles said. “If werewolves existed, I think I would have heard about them in my line of work.”

Stiles had encountered a lot of weird things. But most of those things were man-made, whether intentionally or not. Werewolves firmly opened the door from sci-fi to the supernatural. 

“Then what’s in my bathroom right now?” Kira asked over another loud growl.

“Okay, point,” Stiles said. “So. Werewolves.”


	2. Chapter 2

Most Saturday mornings, Stiles’s dad woke him up with breakfast, since it was the one morning a week they were both usually home and able to relax. Instead, the morning after Kira filled Stiles in, it was the chime of Danny’s ring tone that pulled him out of sleep.

“What is it?” Stiles asked. 

He pulled one eye away from his pillow just far enough to see Danny on the screen of his phone. Of course the bastard looked good even at that hour. Not that Stiles knew what hour it was.

“I got word that Monkey Fist is doing damage at some zoo all the way out in Kansas,” Danny said, taking a sip from a Starbucks cup.

“Oh, God, that kid again?” Stiles groaned. “I thought things would be better once we took out his older brother, you know? Defeated one of our arch nemeses? But now we’ve got Lahey’s stupid kid brother acting as some misguided, totally uninformed animal rights vigilante. He’s like eight and looks like a very tall  _ lamb _ . Ugh. And why Kansas?”

“First of all, he’s probably our age. And secondly, that’s your job to go and figure out. Get up. It’s almost ten. Your dad is probably on his way to wake you up anyway.”

“Yeah, but if he woke me up there would at least be waffles.”

Stiles sighed and gave himself a moment before he rolled out of bed. Sometimes, saving the world meant stopping annoying teenagers with terrible plans.

-

They were just about to parachute out of the plane when Stiles got a text that he assumed was from Scott.

_ ran in2 derek hale hes a werewolf 2 _ , was all it said.

“What?” Stiles yelped.

“What?” Allison asked sharply, looking over from where she was tightening the straps on her parachute. “Put your phone away, Ron.”

Stiles quickly typed out a response:  _ what are you talking about? derek hale is back in town? did he attack you? are you okay? _

He slipped the phone into a pocket of his cargo pants. Scott’s text hadn’t sounded too frantic. Hopefully Stiles wouldn’t have to ditch saving a bunch of innocent monkeys at some Kansas zoo in order to go rescue a freshly minted werewolf he barely knew.

There was a cop car waiting for Stiles and Allison when they landed in a field next to a long dirt road. For all that Stiles was incapable of taking off his pants without tripping over himself, he was pretty damn good at a smooth landing when parachuting. Allison, of course, landed daintily and skipped a few steps along before coming to a comfortable stop. Stiles wouldn’t have gotten a perfect ten, but he always landed on his feet without falling over, and he counted that as a major success every time.

Stiles waved to the waiting police officer, a serious-looking young woman, before unclipping the parachute from himself.

“Mr. Stoppable. Ms. Possible,” the officer called as they walked over.

Upon closer inspection, she seemed to be trying very hard to look serious. She was probably a fan. That happened a lot. Allison was, predictably, much better at handling those instances than Stiles was.

“Thank you for meeting us.” Allison pulled her hair out of its sloppy braid and set to redoing it. “How far are we from the zoo where everything is going down?”

“It should only be about a ten minute drive once we hit town and I turn on the lights and sirens,” the cop said, extending her hand. “It’s an honor to meet you both.”

“Oh, heh, thaaaaanks,” Stiles said, nodding as he shook her hand.

“It’s really nice to meet you too,” Allison added sensibly. “Officer -”

“Oh, what the hell,” the cop said, breaking into a huge smile. “You can call me Braeden.” 

“So what’s going on, exactly?” Stiles asked as he and Allison hopped into the back seat of the police cruiser. “We were told that Monkey Fist 2.0 is trying to rescue monkeys that are supposedly being mistreated in some way.”

“Right,” Braeden said, back to business as she pulled onto the dirt road. “We checked the records and everything at the zoo looked up to standard, and we’re not clear on his sources or accusations, but he showed up with his little martial artist monkey army earlier this morning and took all the employees hostage. He hasn’t actually gotten the monkeys set free yet. We’re pretty sure he forgot he doesn’t have a way to transport them back to where he came from since he hasn’t, you know, mind controlled them yet. Or whatever it is he does to his ninja monkeys. Is anyone actually clear on the science there?”

“I can email you a copy of the scientific studies done after we found a few ancient artifacts at Monkey Fist’s hideout a few months ago,” Allison supplied.

“Ninja monkey science,” Stiles said quietly, shaking his head. “Um, speaking of transportation, how did Monkey Fist the sequel get himself and his own monkeys to the zoo to begin with? His brother’s hideout was  _ in California _ .”

“We are pretty sure he hijacked a bus,” Braeden said, speaking more loudly once she switched on the siren as they entered the small town. “I am so glad we have agents like you two to help out with these things. A bunch of ninja monkeys on a bus. That is not what I signed up to deal with.”

“To be fair,” Stiles said, “neither of us expected to deal with this specific thing either.”

The radio near the steering wheel crackled before a man’s voice came over the line.

“An agent has arrived at the zoo to take care of the situation. Stand by for updates.”

Stiles and Allison looked at one another. It wasn’t the first time another agent had shown up at the same place as them, but Monkey Fist was kind of one of their main bad guys, so they were always called in first. Someone else would be contacted if they couldn’t make it or the situation was far away and really urgent, like the time they didn’t find out Dr. Finstock was planning to attack London until he was already doing it, and Allison was in the middle of getting her wisdom teeth pulled.

“Who else was called in to deal with this?” Allison asked. “Danny didn’t say anything to you, right? He would have told us if he heard about someone else being called in.”

“Officer - uh, Braeden, did your department call anyone other than us to come deal with the situation?” Stiles asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” replied Braeden. “As soon as we heard what was going on, we called you.”

She pulled into a parking spot and turned off the car. Allison slid over to talk to Stiles in an undertone as he unbuckled his seatbelt.

“I don’t know who else would’ve reported it to another agent,” Allison said.

“Maybe someone’s listening to the police scanners?” Stiles guessed. “Let’s just head in and see who it is.”

-

From the roof of the Monkey House, Stiles and Allison used their grappling hooks (disguised as hair dryers, despite the fact that Stiles didn’t  _ have  _ any hair) to rappel into the center of the hostage situation.

Or what was supposed to be a hostage situation. Instead, baby Monkey Fist was tied up and hanging from a tree in the center of the room, his face bright red and his light curls nearly brushing the floor. Most of his mind-controlled monkeys seemed to have been taken out by sedative darts. All of the employees were kind of huddled in a corner, staring slack-jawed at the woman standing in the center of the sea of unconscious, black-clothed monkeys.

The woman had shiny blonde hair and a huge grin on her face. Both of her hands rested on her hips, and Stiles couldn’t figure out where she possibly kept all of her gadgets in her sleek black bodysuit. She was even wearing heeled boots. The outfit had somehow gotten flashier since the last time Stiles had seen her.

“Aunt Kate?” Allison gasped.

“Hey, kids,” Kate drawled. “Nice of you to join the party.”

“Did you,” Stiles started to ask. “How do you even – why are you here?”

“Take it easy, sweetie,” Kate laughed. “I checked in with my dear brother and heard you two were on a mission that happened to be on my way back home, so I thought I would drop in and give you two a little help.”

“You’re coming back home?” Allison asked. 

She moved forward, hopping from one foot to the other between the bodies of the monkeys separating her from her aunt. Once she reached Kate, she went in for a hug.

“Look at you,” Kate said, holding Allison at arm’s length and brushing a loose hair behind her ear. “You’re growing up so fast and so good, kiddo. How’s the boy situation back home? I mean, I hope there are some cute ones around if I’m stopping by for a little while.”

“Um,” Stiles interrupted. “Should I, like, go tell the cops the coast is clear in here?”

“No,” Monkey Fist said from his position in the tree.

“What’s his deal, anyway?” Stiles asked.

“I’m building up my army,” Monkey Fist said, his voice sounding strained from the blood rushing to his head. “To get back at you for defeating my brother.”

“Why Kansas though?” Stiles asked.

“I didn’t think you’d get here quick enough to stop me,” Monkey Fist muttered. “And technically you didn’t!”

“Whatever, dude,” Stiles said, flicking him on the forehead.

Stiles sat across from Kate and Allison for the helicopter ride back. He wasn’t sure how Kate knew Bennett, the guy flying the thing, but he seemed to have heard of Allison as well - real Allison, not her alter-ego - so Stiles let it go. The Argents were kind of a weird family; Stiles had accepted that years ago.

“So how have you been, Stiles?” Kate asked, leaning forward in her seat. 

He had also, years ago, perfected the art of not looking at Kate’s boobs.

“Oh, pretty much the same since the last time we talked,” Stiles replied with a shrug. 

He had been over Allison’s house once recently when Kate wanted to video chat the family, and she made him sit awkwardly on the couch next to Allison’s terrifying mother, Victoria, for the whole hour-long conversation. It had mostly been about different types of bullets, since Allison’s parents sold a colossal number of guns straight from their garage, and Kate tended to use less innovate tech and – well, much more traditional and direct weaponry in her catching of bad guys. 

“You barely said two words,” Kate teased. “You were too busy trying not to make Victoria glare at you any more than usual. No, I don’t mean since we last talked. The last time I saw you in person, you kids were 14. A  _ few _ things must have changed since I trained you two.”

Stiles had never liked it when Kate looked at him for too long. She had a way of staring straight through a person with that smirk on her face. Especially when she was training them in things like tracking and stealth, it felt like she could find exactly the things Stiles was unsure of, the things he didn’t want anyone to notice, and was laughing at them.

“I don’t know,” Allison said, throwing Stiles a smile. She could always tell when Kate was making him uncomfortable. “The three of us have pretty much the same dynamic still.”

“How is Danny?” Kate asked.

Stiles took the distraction to slip his phone out of his pocket. There was a response from Scott:  _ derek says he can help us. _

_ help you? why’d he bite you in the first place? when i get home i’m going to call you guys and you better answer _ , Stiles replied. 

He needed updated info on Derek Hale as soon as possible. The most recent info he had was his father’s files from the Hale case, and those were four years old. Stiles had more research to do.

-

When Stiles was eleven, he met Kate.

He had heard of her before, of course, because she was all over the news and on TV. She took out mad scientists and their experiments, strangling them with her leather-clad thighs and scaring them off with her shiny guns, and then she shipped them off to prison or the lab. She didn’t shoot to kill - she was a hunter who took her prey live, was how she always described it.

Allison didn’t like to talk about her aunt’s methods. Kids at school always tried to ask what it was like to have an aunt who was one of those self-designed agents, and if she remembered her grandpa’s work at all. Gerard Argent had kind of originated the concept, working with very traditional weaponry and teaming up with scientists who he trusted to take care of confiscated tech and bad guys who couldn’t go to regular prison. He’d been killed by some science experiment gone wrong when Allison was just a kid.

There were plenty of other agents out there, always had been, styled haphazardly off of the public info available about the Argent family business. Some of them weren’t terrible, and wound up with their own arch-nemeses and everything, but many worked on a more local scale, and a lot of people just got themselves hurt. Plus, most of them didn’t have the resources to actually deal with the science they encountered even if they could fight and win. Gerard Argent was the original, and Kate was his shining legacy, and everyone else paled in comparison.

It was inevitable that Allison would wind up going into the family business, inheriting the skill set, connections, and recognition. Stiles had known it as long as he had known his best friend, since they sat next to one another during first grade. Still, knowing it and experiencing it were two different things, and when he went over to Allison’s big, fancy house after school on the first day of sixth grade, he was shocked by the woman sitting at their kitchen table, grinning over the barrel of some kind of handgun.

Kate had been talking to her brother as they came in.

“Motor Ed didn’t know what he was up against,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t think the poor boy gets that much attention from women, let alone ones who dress like I do. It didn’t take much to distract him, and I was able to get the tech off of him no problem.”

“And what did you do with the tech?” Chris had asked, his arms folded.

Kate had just bared her teeth at her brother and then turned to where Stiles and Allison were hovering in the doorway. 

“There’s my favorite niece,” Kate had said. “And who’s your little friend?”

That night, when Stiles went home after having his usual Monday night Argent family dinner, Stiles’s mom had taken one look at him and sighed.

“What?” she asked, over and over again, poking Stiles until he told her all about watching Allison’s first day of training.

“I mean,” Stiles had said, practically bouncing in his seat as his mom scooped him out some ice cream. “She already does gymnastics and archery but this was like, obstacle courses and learning how to track things through the woods. Kate said that sometime she’ll have Allison track me through the woods. I really need a cell phone, Mom. What if Allison isn’t good enough at tracking me?”

Stiles’s mom had snorted into her sprinkles, and a few landed on her shirt. She stuck her tongue out at him when he laughed. 

Stiles kept sitting in on Allison’s practices, but it was a while before he joined her.

-

Chris was waiting for them at the airport with his huge red SUV.

“Hey, big brother,” Kate said, hugging him where he leaned against his truck. “You miss me?”

“Of course I did,” Chris replied. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not curious as to why you’re back.”

Allison shot Stiles a look as they hopped into the back of the car. She wasn’t easy to ruffle, but as much as she loved her aunt, Kate’s unpredictability and disdain for rules had always gotten under her skin, even when she was little.

“Really?” Kate asked. “You don’t want to know how my mission went?”

“Kate, I would’ve known the moment you stepped off that plane from the look on your face if your mission hadn’t been successful. And, by the way, it wasn’t your mission. It was Allison and Stiles’s. You hijacked it.”

“The kids don’t mind,” Kate laughed. “They’re glad to see their favorite aunt. And  _ you _ should be glad to see your favorite sister.”

“Kate,” Chris said, his eyebrows drawing together.

“I have unfinished business to attend to in my favorite boring little town. Relax, Chris.”

“Anything the sheriff of said boring little town should be concerned with?” Stiles asked.

“Of course not.” Kate shot him an exaggeratedly wounded look in the rear-view mirror. “You know I would tell you if that was the case. I just heard an old friend might be in town and wanted to take a look.”

Stiles looked over at Allison, but it was clear that she didn’t know who Kate was talking about either. As they pulled up alongside the curb in front of Stiles’s house, Stiles waved his phone at her, to let her know he would be asking later if Allison had any more information.

“Thanks for the ride, Chris,” he said as he hopped out of the car.

“You coming over for dinner on Monday night?” Kate called.

“Of course,” Stiles replied, managing a smile.

-

As Stiles set about making himself a sandwich for lunch, he called his dad at work.

“You back safe from the mission?” the sheriff asked. 

There was a lot of commotion going on in the background of the call. He definitely wasn’t in his office.

“Yeah,” Stiles answered, piling cheese onto the white bread he hid at the back of the pantry. “Guess who showed up? Kate.”

“Kate showed up in Kansas?” his dad asked, sounding distracted.

“Uh-huh. She’s back in Beacon Hills. We haven’t figured out why yet.”

“Could be nothing,” the sheriff said. “Probably isn’t.”

“Exactly,” Stiles replied. “Where  _ are _ you?”

“An officer didn’t show up to work yesterday and never called in. You know Parrish, the new guy? He was finally reported as a missing person. We went to check his house and there’s no sign of a struggle. His car is here and everything. We’re not really sure what the hell is going on.”

“Weird,” Stiles answered. “How many people have gone missing recently?”

“Within the county, this is the third in the past two weeks. There doesn’t seem to be a connection between the victims, either. Oh, hey, I have to go. Town needs its sheriff. Talk to you later, son.”

“Love you, Dad.”

“Love you, too.”

Stiles hung up and took a bite out of his sandwich. He scrolled to his inbox and looked at the texts from Scott. Hopefully one of them would answer if he called them on Skype.

-

While Stiles was waiting for his Skype call with Scott and Kira, he pulled up the research Danny had done on the Hale family disappearance. Stiles didn’t  _ enjoy _ having Danny hack into police files at his dad’s station, but sometimes it was necessary.

He already knew some basics: it happened four years ago, obviously. Laura and Derek Hale, who were in high school, hadn’t been home at the time, and claimed to have no idea what happened. There was very little public information on the disappearance of the other 12 members of the Hale family.

The pictures Danny had unearthed were - bizarre. The Hale mansion had been broken into. The entire house was a mess. Furniture was broken haphazardly, dented and knocked over, smashed. There were no fingerprints from strangers. No mysterious tire tracks. Nothing to suggest a mass kidnapping. But all the Hale cars were still out front, all their phones found in the rubble - nothing to suggest they chose to leave, either.

There was nothing to explain where the 12 disappeared Hales had gone, or how, or why, and nothing to explain why two were left behind.

Stiles jumped when the Skype video chat notification rang. When the call picked up, Scott and Kira were both seated in front of the laptop with the lights off, probably because Scott’s eyes were still too sensitive. It looked like they were precariously sharing a desk chair.

“So,” Stiles started. “Derek Hale, huh?”

Kira pulled a face.

“Scott dropped his inhaler in the woods so we went back to find it,” Kira said.

“That’s good,” Stiles interrupted. “Go back to where you got attacked and turned into a supernatural creature. Always a good plan.”

“Hey,” Scott replied, “I have enhanced senses and agility now.”

“You didn’t notice Derek until he was, like, ten feet away,” Kira said. 

“That doesn’t count,” Scott said. “He has enhanced abilities too. And that’s exactly why he wants to train me!”

“Whoa,” Stiles said. “I’m sorry. What’s this about Derek Hale mysteriously popping up in the middle of the woods near the house he abandoned four years ago because his family mysteriously vanished and then revealing himself to be a werewolf and mysteriously offering to teach you Werewolf 101?”

“He showed up out of nowhere,” Kira said. “And told us we were on private property and then he tossed Scott’s inhaler at us. And then he, like, made this face and sniffed at the air?”

“Once he realized I was a werewolf too he got way less creepy,” Scott said earnestly.

“Uh-huh,” Stiles replied. “So he acted like he didn’t know it at first. But how do you guys know he isn’t the one who bit you?”

“He seemed really confused,” Scott said. “I don’t think he was expecting another werewolf. He was really excited when he showed us his eyes and how to transform part of the way so that he got, like, muttonchops and his fangs came out and his forehead got all caveman.”

“Excited?” Kira asked. “He looked a little less like he was ready to pull out an ax and start chopping.”

“Are you just saying that because of his leather jacket?” Scott asked. He sounded wounded. “I liked his jacket.”

“Anyway, he basically told us that he would teach Scott how to control himself so he doesn’t wind up eating me or revealing his secret or whatever. But he didn’t give us a phone number or anything so I’m not really sure what he’s planning on doing? It was really weird.”

Stiles ran a hand over his face.

“Right,” Stiles said. “I’m going to look into this guy.”

He paused. It looked like there was some kind of dark shaping moving in the background of the screen, in the corner of Scott’s room. For a moment, Stiles thought he saw glowing blue eyes.

“Behind you,” he started to say, and then a man darted forward and grabbed Scott and Kira each by the shoulder, dragging them backwards off of the chair as he snarled, his face changing in the dim light of the laptop screen. 

Then he looked right at Stiles and let out a roar.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and co. meet Derek Hale, and Allison faces off against Shego.

The man was all leather jacket, dark wayward hair, and fangs, and he rounded on Scott and Kira. Kira had landed on the bed, but Scott seemed to have fallen to the floor, out of the frame. Stiles grabbed his computer screen.

“Guys?” he asked. “What’s going on? I assume this is Derek?”

“You told someone?” Derek asked, loud and gruff, pointing back at the computer screen behind him. “Didn’t I just tell you why it was so important to keep this a secret? Who even is this kid?”

“Hey,” Stiles said.

“Derek, seriously?” Kira huffed, pulling Scott up onto the edge of the bed. “We told Stiles yesterday. As in, before we met you and you listed off the top twenty reasons not to tell humans about werewolves, alright?”

“It’s bad enough that you already know,” Derek said. “Were you going to tell me that someone else knows?”

“Do you always shout this much?” Stiles asked.

“Kinda,” Scott said, cheerfully enough.

Derek ran a hand through his hair, pacing back and forth between the bed and the laptop.

“Okay,” Derek said. “We’ll have to work with this. Why did you tell him to begin with? No, don’t tell me in front of him. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Are you serious right now?” Stiles asked.

Derek turned to the laptop, planting one hand on either side of it on the desk. He bared his teeth, though his face was back to normal and so were his teeth. Stiles raised his eyebrows.

“You understand that you cannot tell anyone about this,” Derek said.

He was glaring, but Stiles sensed that Derek felt more like he was begging than he wanted to. It was the enormous eyebrows, probably; they looked more sad than threatening, the way they pulled together in the middle. Plus his voice wasn’t nearly as deep as Stiles expected it to be, so his growling sounded more annoyed than vicious. It was a little sad and more than a little endearing. Stiles hated himself.

“Because everyone would believe me,” Stiles said. “Why would I tell anyone that one of my classmates is suddenly a werewolf? Which I’ve barely even seen proof of, by the way. We should change that.”

“Listen to me,” Derek growled. He did that a lot. Stiles had only known him for five minutes, and he already did that a lot. “You will not tell anyone about this, or I’ll rip your throat out. With my teeth.”

“Easy, killer,” Stiles said. “You might not want to throw threats at the sheriff’s kid.”

Derek pulled away from the computer and glared at Kira, who cowered, but not as much as Scott did, and Scott wasn’t even in Derek’s path.

“The one person you told was the sheriff’s kid? Really?”

“Hey,” Scott interrupted. “Why doesn’t Stiles come to training later? If he already knows, he’s basically in the pack, right?”

“That’s not how pack works,” Derek said, pinching his nose between his thumb and pointer finger and sighing.

“Wow,” Stiles said. “Okay. I believe you. You definitely didn’t bite him. You never would have chosen a teenager. How old are you, anyway? Thirty? Thirty-five?”

“I hate everything,” Derek said. “And besides, that’s not how it works.”

“Not how what works?” Stiles asked. “What, do you age in dog years?”

Scott laughed and then covered his mouth with his hand, his eyes going wide when Derek turned to glare at him.

“There is no bite,” Derek said, turning back to Stiles. “Werewolves are only born. Biological. The bite is a myth.”

“So… how the hell did this happen?” Kira asked.

“I don’t know,” Derek said quietly.

“Hang on,” Stiles said. “If you didn’t bite Scott, and you don’t know what caused this, then… it’s just a coincidence that you showed up back in Beacon Hills the day after it happened?”

Derek grabbed the abandoned desk chair and sat down heavily, but off to the side a bit so that Stiles could still see Scott and Kira, which was weirdly… polite.

“I followed my sister here,” Derek said, staring down at his lap. “She came back when we heard about the wolf sightings. The last time there were wolves in this area - ”

“ _ Oh _ ,” Stiles said.

“It was when my family disappeared,” Derek said, his mouth pressing into a thin line. “We don’t know if there’s any kind of actual connection there, but she had to look into it.”

“Where’s your sister now?” Scott asked after a pause.

“I don’t know,” Derek said again, his eyebrows doing that sad bunchy thing. “I came back because I haven’t heard from her in a few days.”

“A few people in the area have gone missing recently,” Stiles said carefully.

Derek shook his head.

“She’s a werewolf,” he said. “She could fight off someone who’s going around only equipped to kidnap humans. And if someone went after her because she’s a werewolf, they wouldn’t be going after humans too.”

“Okay,” Stiles said. “So Beacon Hills is dealing with a human kidnapper kidnapping humans  _ and _ some kind of returned supernatural vanishing act, probably.”

“I didn’t say any of that,” Derek said, and Stiles rolled his eyes.

“Well, if you’d actually give me the information you have, I could help you a lot better.”

“I’m not giving you anything,” Derek said, and Stiles got the distinct sense that, in addition to having massive and probably justified trust issues, the guy just liked to be contrary.

“Oh, come on,” Stiles said. “I’m a research wiz. Besides, I’m already in the know. Good luck getting rid of me now.”

Derek huffed, glaring at Stiles through the screen for a moment, but he didn’t say no before he slammed the laptop shut, and Stiles took that as a win.

-

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Allison asked.

She had her feet up on Stiles’s dashboard as usual, but her hands were clasped together nervously in her lap as Stiles bounced the Jeep down the path to the Hale house.

“You guys already knew,” Stiles said. “It’s either piss him off now or piss him off later, right?”

“I’d rather be eaten later,” Danny said from the back seat, most of his attention on his phone.

“If he eats anyone, it’ll be me,” Stiles said with much more confidence than he felt as they pulled up to the clearing near the house.

Kira was sitting on the run-down porch, watching as Scott and Derek circled each other on the grass, crouched down. They were both shirtless.

“I bet you’d let him eat you,” Danny said.

Stiles whipped around in his seat and punched Danny in the chest.

“Dude, enhanced werewolf hearing!” he hissed.

Just then, there was a very, very loud crash, and Stiles looked up just in time to see Scott climbing out of the remains of a tree. He was concerned about Scott’s… entire skeleton, but Kira didn’t look worried, and he was grateful for the distraction from Danny’s comment.

Stiles waited until Allison and Danny were standing beside him in front of the car to glance over at Derek, who had his arms crossed and was glowering down at them like he hadn’t just tossed Scott through the air like a tennis ball. No, he was glaring down at them like he  _ had _ just done exactly that.

“So,” Stiles said. “Uh, hi.”

“Hi,” Scott said as he brushed leaves out of his floppy hair. “Hey, Danny. And you’re Allison, right? I mean, of course you’re Allison.”

He smiled sheepishly, and Allison smiled back, but she sobered when Derek started to growl.

“Okay,” Stiles said loudly. “Relax. They already knew. We’ve been doing research since Scott first started acting weird, before Kira even told me anything. We’ve kind of got connections. And come on! You can’t  _ really _ expect  _ me _ to deal with something like this without these two getting in on it. I mean, we’re literally advertized as a package deal.”

“He’s right,” Kira said, “Can’t really hire the sidekick without - ”

“Hey!” Stiles said, even though she was right, and possibly helping to save his life.

“What are you talking about?” Derek asked lowly, his eyes glowing blue.

“Seriously?” Stiles asked, gesturing dramatically to Allison. “You don’t recognize  _ the _ Kim Possible when you see her?”

Instantly, Derek dropped to a crouch, and his face transformed. Muttonchops appeared and fangs poked into his lip and his forehead did something that made him look like a Buffy vampire, seriously, what was the deal with that.

“Whoa,” Stiles said, putting his hands up and moving in front of Allison, and Kira ran down from the porch to stand alongside him.

He wished suddenly that he’d brought his backpack, but it was thrown somewhere in the back seat of his car. Scott moved in closer too, dipping low to the ground, looking like he was ready to pounce on Derek if necessary, which was sweet and probably useless. Allison, though, gently shoved Stiles and Kira out of her way and took a few steps closer to Derek.

It was always fascinating to see her like this, going into KP mode when she wasn’t dressed for it. She was wearing a floral dress and heeled boots and a denim jacket, her hair hung down in loose curls, and the purse slung over her shoulder was probably full of post-it notes and gum wrappers alongside high-tech weaponry.

“We don’t trust agents,” Derek growled around his teeth, glaring at Scott and then Kira.

“Stiles has helped Scott just as much as you have,” Kira protested, but Allison reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, and Kira took a step back.

“All I want is to protect this town,” Allison said. “I want to help Scott learn to control himself. I want to help you figure out how he was turned. And I want to help you find your sister.”

“You agents claim you want to help,” Derek said, “but you really want to get rid of anything you decide is dangerous.”

“That’s not true,” Allison said. “We go after criminals. Some of them require special arrangements.”

“It’s like science jail,” Stiles added, and Allison kicked him unsubtly.

“I understand if you don’t believe me,” she said. “I understand that we pose a threat to you. But we’re not going to tell anyone about you. I’m just trying to offer my resources.”

Derek turned away for a long moment, and when he turned back, standing up fully, his face was normal again, his eyebrows drawn together. 

“You already know, so I can’t stop you from working on your own,” he said. “But agents are not welcome here.”

Allison nodded and turned away, heading for the car.

“Fine then,” Stiles muttered. “You two keep me updated, okay?”

He pointed at Scott and Kira, and then headed back to his car. Nobody said anything as they headed out of the woods. Once they were back on the main road, though, Danny spoke up.

“I lied,” he said. “I might let him eat me.”

-

When Stiles sat down to research instead of doing his homework Sunday morning, he realized that he wasn’t sure exactly what he should be researching.

Most of the stuff online about werewolves was bullshit, obviously, and he’d never heard about werewolves before as an agent, so all the info that Danny had access to wasn’t going to help. He wasn’t sure what to type into Google to figure out how werewolves were being created if the biting thing wasn’t real, and he wasn’t sure how to research mysteriously vanishing werewolves either. The only real clue they had was the appearance of  _ actual _ wolves in the area, and even Derek didn’t know if there was a connection there.

Stiles let his head thump against his desk, narrowly missing the keyboard. He couldn’t stare at the empty Google search bar any longer. He clicked the pen in his hand rapidly, unsure of when he’d even picked it up or why, and groaned loudly. It was so hard to try to stay focused when he didn’t have anything to focus  _ on _ yet.

When his phone when off, the vibrations drilled into his forehead, and he yelped, grabbing first at his regular phone and then at his Ron phone when he realized which ringtone it was.

“What’s the sitch?” he asked.

“I hope you’re not doing anything important,” Danny said, “because you need to go to Japan now.”

“Great!” Stiles said, leaping up from his desk chair.

“Oh really,” Danny said, dry as ever. “It’s great that Dr. Finstock is building some super-robot to take over the world.”

“No?” Stiles tried. “Oh whatever, Danny, it’s not like he’s going to  _ succeed _ . Literally ever.”

“Put your money where your mouth is, Stilinski. Allison’s picking you up in five.”

Allison drove them out to Deaton’s, and Deaton flew them halfway around the globe. Casual. It took kind of forever and Stiles fell asleep for most of the ride, content with the knowledge that he would be missing class the next morning and therefore it didn’t matter that he hadn’t done his homework yet.

He jerked awake as they landed, wiping drool off of his face.

“Danny says they haven’t built the robot yet - Finstock’s trying to threaten people into putting it together for him,” Allison said, standing up from her seat and waiting for Stiles to wake up fully and start moving.

“Huh,” Stiles said. “You know, Shego could probably build him a world-dominating robot from scratch.”

“She  _ could _ ,” Allison agreed. “But he couldn’t threaten or pay her enough that she’d actually do it.”

“And I am so grateful for that,” Stiles said, putting a hand to his chest in a moment of genuine relief.

“Danny’s got motorcycles waiting for us,” Allison said, her smile simultaneously adorable and terrifying.

Stiles whooped and fist-pumped and raced Allison off of the plane.

-

They pulled to a stop down the block from the factory and walked the rest of the way there. This part of Tokyo was bright and noisy even at night, but they were dressed in dark clothing and kept their heads down. When they reached the back of the building, Allison brought out her grappling hook, and Stiles did the same.

“Blueprints say there’s a window on the roof we can get in through,” Allison said, and then she was off.

Stiles hated using his grappling hook. He was always afraid that he’d let go halfway up the side of a building, or that he’d crash into a bird trying to fly past, or that it’d catch on his pants and rip them off or something. None of that had ever happened before (okay, there were a few near-misses), but he was still paranoid.

He landed safely on top of the building a few moments after Allison and followed her over to the window. It led down into an attic that seemed dark and musty. The coast was totally clear for them to drop in.

So, of course, just a couple of moments after they landed quietly on the floor, the lights turned on.

“Hey, kids,” Shego drawled.

She was easy to spot up in the rafters, with her long orange ponytail, red bodysuit, inorganically pink-tinted skin, and also the orange balls of glowy… whatever it was, Stiles could never remember the scientific terminology from the reports they had on her freak accident or whatever, but anyway, the glowing balls of danger engulfing her fists, the ones she was aiming right at them. Those were pretty easy to spot too.

“Happy to see me?” Allison asked, and then she parkoured up the wall and off of some boxes and into the rafters.

“Happy for a chance to kick your ass,” Shego replied, and then they were going at it, darting back and forth from beam to beam, Shego slicing the air with glowing streaks of orange and Allison sticking to hand-to-hand.

They always did this, spar and banter for ages before Finstock showed up or Stiles got trapped somewhere and needed help, or one of them got distracted and the other landed a good hit and then they started to get  _ really _ pissed. It always took ages.

“Don’t you people ever get sick of trying to take over the world and failing?” Allison asked, bending over backwards to avoid the swipe of Shego’s arm.

“I get a paycheck whether Finstock wins or loses,” Shego replied, shrugging, and then dropping to hang off of the rafter as Allison leapt at her.

Stiles always got distracted watching the two of them go at it, evenly matched as they were. It was impressive, because Shego was short and glamorous and not particularly athletic-looking, but she was just as tough as Allison. Meanwhile Allison was entirely human and, not to be rude or anything, but she wasn’t a genius like Shego was. And their varied skill-sets balanced out into something evenly matched. 

Missions to stop Dr. Finstock were always a little weird for Stiles. With other bad guys, things tended to be less predictable, and the roles Allison and Stiles played tended to shift more. But here, before Finstock himself showed up, it was particularly clear that Stiles was the sidekick with less to offer. It usually didn’t bother him, or bother him much, but he felt like there was a limit on the number of times he’d be able to do this specific dance, the one where he didn’t actually dance at all.

Stiles’s focus on Allison and Shego’s back-and-forth meant he flinched when there was a noise nearby, not up in the rafters but down on the floor where he was. When he looked down, something funny happened in his stomach.

The room was full of goons, big black-clad men and women all closing in on Stiles slowly but surely.

“Uh, Kim?” Stiles called as the burly dudes and ladies backed him into a corner. “ _ Kim _ .”

“What is it, Ron?” Allison called, sounding distracted.

She grunted and did a backflip over his head to a new beam.

“Toss me that new chapstick you got?”

“Now isn’t the time for beauty care,” Shego called as she leapt over his head, but Allison reached into one of her many pockets and dropped it to Stiles in the middle of dodging.

Stiles caught the little tin, thankfully, and held it up.

“Just give me a second, dudes, yeah? Let a guy look nice when he goes.”

The two goons closest to him exchanged a look, and one actually shrugged, so while they were distracted Stiles took a huge breath and closed his mouth and opened the tin. As soon as the stench hit them, all of the goons fell down, out cold. The guy nearest Stiles twitched a little. He shut the tin and gagged. Useful as it was, the smell lingered for  _ way _ too long.

“Hey, KP,” Stiles called.

“You always go running when your little boyfriend needs your help,” Shego said, sounding annoyed.

“Ugh,” Allison replied, and Stiles could see her wrinkle her nose in distaste even from a few beams away.

“Nice,” Stiles said, and then, louder, “Actually,  _ I’m _ not asking for  _ her  _ help - ”

“No monologuing, Ron,” Allison said. “You always complain when the bad guys do it.”

“Besides,” Shego added, “I seriously doubt Kimmy here needs your help.”

“Thanks!” Allison said brightly, and then she flipped back toward the beam right above Stiles, and he tossed the tin in the air. To Shego, she added, “Oh, uh, sorry about this.”

As Allison landed in a crouch on the beam, Shego’s eyes went wide. She started to back away, but Allison thrusted her hand out and caught the tin neatly, then turned and twisted it open. Shego staggered and fell off of the neighboring beam, landing on a couple of goons.

“Sorry to cut your duel short, but we should get moving,” Stiles said as Allison dropped to land next to him.

“Yeah,” she agreed, sounding a little put out.

“What, is telling your favorite sparring partner how gross am I more important than stopping your arch-nemesis from taking over the world?”

“Maybe,” Allison said, sticking her tongue out at Stiles.

She linked their arms and they headed for the stairs.

-

Predictably, it didn’t take long to get all the stolen robot tech away from Dr. Finstock, and predictably, Dr. Finstock somehow managed to evade capture, once Shego and the henchmen woke up and came to save his ass. He and Allison stood side by side on the roof, watching Finstock, with his blue skin and wild hair, wave his fist in the air and yell about how one day he’d get them, as Shego flew them away on that weird tiny hovercraft thing.

“One day we should probably steal his weird tiny hovercraft thing,” Stiles said.

“Yeah,” Allison agreed. “Also we should ask Shego what it’s called.”

“Sure,” Stiles said, and then they headed back to Deaton’s plane.

Stiles was looking forward to passing out again as soon as he strapped into his seat, but when he checked his phone he had a bunch of missed calls from both Scott and Kira, and a few texts.

_ i think a werewolf is stalking me _ , said a text from Scott.

_ i mean other than derek _ , said a second one.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Allison face off against Camille Leon, Beacon Hills gets a new student, and Stiles and Derek get stuck in a weird situation.

“Uh,” Stiles said, staring at the texts.

The fight against Dr. Finstock and Shego hadn’t been too difficult, but they’d had a long flight there, and still had a long flight home, and he had math homework he should probably do at some point, and he was tired. He handed the phone to Allison.

“Hm,” she said. “Good thing we have international plans on our work phones.”

“Aw, crap, those texts were on my personal phone though,” Stiles said. “My dad’s gonna kill me.”

Allison made a sympathetic face at him as she plugged Scott’s number into her Kim phone and placed the call, switching it to speaker.

“Oh my god,” Scott answered after a few rings. “Kim Possible just called me on the phone! That’s so cool!”

“Scott, buddy,” Stiles said, “what’s this about you being stalked by a werewolf?”

“Right,” Scott said. “I was coming home from work at the animal hospital? And I noticed some glowy eyeballs staring at me from near the trees, running alongside my car? It didn’t attack me or anything, but it definitely followed me for a while.”

“And you’re sure it wasn’t Derek,” Stiles checked.

“This one had gold eyes like mine, dude,” Scott said. “Derek’s glow blue. Also, I drove to Derek’s house when no one answered the phone, because I was panicking, and apparently I can tell when people are lying by listening to their heartbeat, and I asked Derek and he wasn’t lying.”

“How can we be certain it was a werewolf and not something else, though?” Allison asked.

“Hang on, I’m sorry,” Stiles said. “Is Derek _living_ in his family’s dusty old abandoned house? Like, I know it’s structurally sound and everything, but when we were there the other day it didn’t look like it had been cleaned at all. Or like it has electricity or running water or anything.”

“Yeah,” Scott said. “Derek’s weird. I’m pretty sure it was a werewolf though. It smelled like it.”

“Okay,” Allison said after a moment. “Well, we’re on our way back from Japan right now. I’m sorry we couldn’t answer your calls.”

“Nah, you had to save the world probably,” Scott said. “That’s cool. Derek didn’t have anywhere near that good an excuse.”

“Was his excuse that he can’t charge his phone because he doesn’t have electricity?” Stiles asked, and Allison elbowed him.

“Scott, we’ll figure this out,” she said. “We’re gonna keep you safe.”

“Right, yeah,” Stiles said. “We’ve got your back, buddy.”

“Thanks,” Scott said. “I’m gonna get Derek a phone charger for his car just in case though.”

-

Seeing as how they spent a lot of hours on an airplane and also they stopped several bad guys in several days, Stiles and Allison both got to skip school and Argent family dinner on Monday. Stiles slept for a long, long time, and woke up ready to get back to researching werewolf business, but there was more official business to deal with.

Camille Leon, a heiress/model/actress/rich famous blonde lady, seemed to be involved in a lot of high-scale robberies happening in LA, but no one could figure out how she was connected. Danny and Stiles usually wound up in a big research spiral every time something went missing from an event she was attending, but Danny sent him and Allison a video chat request to announce that he’d made a breakthrough.

His hair was wild and it looked like he hadn’t slept since - well, Stiles was on a weird sleep schedule too and wasn’t really sure what time or day it was, honestly, and he was sure he looked no better than Danny. Allison was in pajamas with her hair up in a bun, but she looked like a functional member of society.

“What did you learn?” she asked.

“This isn’t really a surprise, but Camille Leon is a stage name,” Danny said. “Her real name is Erica Reyes. She used to look like this.”

Danny sent them a picture of a teenage girl, blonde and nice-looking, but with messy hair and imperfect skin and unstylish clothing.

“Okay, so she got plastic surgery,” Stiles said. “She doesn’t look _super_ different.”

“She got experimental nanomorphing surgery,” Danny said, “to make her able to look like anyone.”

“Oh,” Stiles said. “ _Chameleon_. I get it.”

“That explains how she pulls off all the robberies,” Allison said.

“Right.” Danny sent through a picture of an expensive-looking necklace. “There’s this show in LA on Friday that she’s got an invitation for, and this necklace will be on display. I’m gonna get the two of you invited. In the meantime, learn everything you can about her so that you have a better chance of figuring out when she’s impersonating someone.”

“Great,” Stiles said. “Will my suit from homecoming cut it?”

“No,” Allison and Danny said in unison.

-

He let Allison drag him to Macy’s at the mall a few nights later on the condition that he didn’t have to actually pick anything out, just stand there carrying options and trying things on, and also on the second condition that Allison would buy him food once they were done.

“Scott says he hasn’t seen the you-know-what since that night,” Stiles said over the mountain of clothing Allison was piling into his arms.

“That’s good,” Allison said absently, holding two button-ups in similar shades of blue next to Stiles’s head.

“Hey, do you think something’s going on between him and Kira?” Stiles asked. “Because I really can’t tell. One minute I think they’re definitely, like, long-term mutually pining, and sometimes I’m pretty sure it’s platonic, and then other times I feel like one day they’re gonna wake up and dramatically be like, _oh, it’s you_ , you know?”

“Oh,” said a voice Stiles didn’t recognize. “It’s you.”

He and Allison both turned around to see a very, very attractive guy smiling at Allison from the other side of the rack of button-ups.

“Uh,” Stiles said.

“Allison Argent,” the guy said, which was weird, because Stiles had expected the guy to call her Kim.

“Yes,” Allison said slowly. “And you are?”

“Jackson Whittemore,” the guy said, now looking a little confused himself. “Uh, I’m new to Beacon Hills. I’m in your math class? We met yesterday.”

“Oh,” Allison said. “Oh my god! Right, sorry. Yes. Hi!”

Jackson, whoever he was, looked pretty disappointed, but Stiles couldn’t blame him, because he was really good-looking and probably wasn’t forgotten by girls often. And it had to be especially disappointing to be forgotten by Allison.

“Is there a school dance I don’t know about?” Jackson asked after a moment, pointing to the clothes Stiles was holding but still not acknowledging Stiles himself.

Allison still looked kind of uncomfortable, so Stiles interrupted loudly.

“Oh, shit, my phone’s ringing,” he said. “It’s in my pocket, I can’t get it, will you, Allison, help - ?”

He shuffled the clothes around a bit like he was gonna drop something, and Allison began to paw at his pockets less artfully than usual - to be honest, it was probably weird how often she rescued Stiles’s phone from his pocket because his hands were precariously full - and she flashed him a smile where Jackson couldn’t see it. Weirdly, when she resurfaced with the phone, Jackson was still patiently waiting there, though Stiles wasn’t sure what he was waiting for.

“Oh, you have to take this,” Allison said. “Here, let’s go find a fitting room so we can put everything down. Okay, nice seeing you, Jackson! Bye!”

She hauled Stiles away before she was even done speaking.

“So,” Stiles said as he dumped the clothes onto a bench.

“I don’t know,” Allison said. “If none of this fits we can just come back tomorrow.”

Stiles groaned and accepted his fate.

-

Allison and Danny decided that the best way to get to Camille was for Allison to be _in_ the fashion show wearing the necklace Camille was after. Allison was getting changed between sets, tucking Danny tech into her tights and fixing her hair in the mirror while Stiles stood off to the side checking through his list of facts about Camille again.

The thing about Camille Leon was that shapeshifters were really hard to notice if you didn’t know any of the people at the event where the shapeshifter was plotting evil, and also Stiles’s suit was not comfortable. He’d been wandering around backstage while Allison was pretending to be a model, looking for suspicious behavior or identifiable traits like Camille’s affinity for leather and red lipstick. It wasn’t going very well.

Luckily Camille made things easier for them by showing up in their dressing room disguised as Stiles.

“Uh,” Stiles said, and so did fake Stiles, and then fake Stiles took a flying leap at him.

They rolled around on the floor for a bit and Stiles, the real one, ended up on top. When he looked up, Allison didn’t look super worried about figuring out which one was him. He was pretty sure it was because she felt confident in identifying him and not because she didn’t care if she zapped the wrong Stiles with her purple cattle prod. Also, it had sparkles on it now, because thankfully sometimes Danny was mean to Allison too.

Stiles’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

“Oh, hang on,” he said, reaching for it, and fake Stiles took the opportunity to knock him over.

“Get back,” Allison said to fake Stiles, waving the cattle prod.

“Hey!” fake Stiles said in a decent imitation of his inflection. “Allison, what the hell?”

“Oh, come on,” Allison said. “Like an actual bad guy would’ve gone for their phone like that. Who is it?”

Fake Stiles pouted, a weird expression to see on his own face, and then morphed into a beautiful blonde girl in a low-cut, high-slitted dress. Her boobs were, actually, very close to Stiles’s face for a moment before she climbed up off of him, and he briefly forgot what he was supposed to be doing, but then his phone rang again. It was Kira.

“What’s up?” he asked, while Allison took out her own phone to let the feds know they had Camille.

“Stiles!” Kira said. “We got attacked.”

“Are you okay?” Stiles asked. “Who attacked you?”

“I don’t know,” Kira replied, and Stiles couldn’t tell which question she was answering.

“Uh, we’re kind of in LA?” Stiles said. “Are you, like, still being attacked, or are you okay enough that we can help when we get there? I can call my dad?”

“Uhhhh,” Kira said again.

“Don’t call your dad,” Scott said, his voice pretty close to the phone. “Just come straight to the animal hospital when you get here, okay? Derek’s with us, we’re not getting attacked anymore, but we need your help.”

“You know you guys are being weirdly cryptic, right?” Stiles asked. “Is Derek making you say these things? Does he have a, uh, his claws to your head?”

“Definitely not,” Kira said. “He doesn’t really want you to come, but he doesn’t know what to do. It took us _so_ long to convince him to let us call you.”

“Great,” Stiles said. “I’m looking forward to it.”

-

It was pretty late, practically early, by the time they finished up with arresting Camille Leon and hitched their ride back to Beacon Hills, then drove over to the animal hospital. All the lights were off, but the back door opened when Allison pushed on it, and quiet voices came from one of the back rooms.

“Kira?” Stiles called.

“In here,” Kira replied, but she didn’t sound happy about it.

Stiles shrugged at Allison and pushed open the door, and then he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Aw, crap,” he said.

Scott and Kira were pressed really close together on one side, Scott’s arm over Kira’s shoulder and her arm around his back, at a weird angle like they’d been going in for a hug and then stopped halfway there, and they both looked miserable.

“Oh man,” Allison said. “Bondo Ball, huh?”

“What?” Derek asked through his teeth, and Stiles jumped, smacking his elbow on a metal table.

“Jeez,” Stiles hissed, rubbing at his arm, as Derek emerged from the corner with his arms crossed.

“We’ve seen this tech before,” Allison said. “It’s a molecular adhesive. Professor Dementor invented it.”

She pulled out her phone and started texting Danny.

“Wait,” Stiles said, “we put that dude in prison though. Who attacked you guys?”

“We don’t know,” Kira said. “We were in the woods and this little metal ball thing got thrown at us and gas exploded everywhere. We didn’t see anything.”

“Does that really matter right now?” Scott asked. “Is there a way to reverse it?”

“Danny figured out a debonding formula last time we encountered the stuff,” Allison said. “He’s going to make some more and bring it over. Shouldn’t take too long.”

“See?” Stiles asked, turning toward Derek. “Aren’t you glad you asked for our help?”

He reached over to clap Derek on the shoulder, which he already knew was a mistake for a lot of reasons even before he did it, and Derek’s eyes widened comically as Stiles’s hand flew in slow motion toward him, and then Stiles’s hand was stuck to Derek’s shoulder.

“You got hit with the gas too, huh?” Stiles asked grimly.

Derek growled, and his teeth got all pointy, and his eyes glowed blue, and Stiles gulped.

“You know, if you rip my head off right now, it’ll just get stuck to your hand, and that won’t be very fun for you,” Stiles said.

“Oh no,” Scott said suddenly, and even Derek was distracted. Scott continued balefully, “I really have to pee.”

Kira gazed up at him in horror for a long moment, and then they began a reluctant shuffle out into the hallway, presumably toward the bathroom.

“Danny needs another set of hands,” Allison said. “Normally this would be a job for you, but -”

She gestured vaguely to Stiles’s hand where it rested on Derek’s leather jacket, which was much softer than it looked.

“Cool, great, cool,” Stiles said, turning back to Derek. “You better not have to pee before she gets back.”

Rather than threaten Stiles again, Derek huffed noisily and looked down at his shoulder, then reached up and tugged at his jacket.

“Yeah, no, that doesn’t work, don’t worry, we tried it a bunch last time,” Stiles said. “I’m bound to your clothes which are bound to you.”

Derek huffed again and moved to lean against the counter, dragging Stiles with him. Since his hand was facing Derek, rather than coming from behind, he couldn’t really lean against the counter too, so he used his foot to hook a stool and roll it close enough to sit down. It was kind of awkward, because he was at chest height and his arm was up higher than that. But it was better than standing really close to a lounging Derek, who looked annoyed but less murderous than Stiles had seen him yet, maybe because he knew for certain there was nothing to do but wait.

“So,” Stiles said. “Hey, did Scott tell you he thought another werewolf was following him? Is that possible?”

Derek was quiet for a long moment.

“I don’t know what’s possible anymore,” he said.

Stiles just barely resisted mouthing _yikes_ or something else insensitive. Derek’s sister had just gone missing, on top of all the other shit he’d been through. Stiles was no stranger to grief, and the least he could do was try not to actively make things worse. Before he could figure out what to actually say, Derek cleared his throat and shifted, jolting Stiles’s arm, which was already starting to get pins and needles.

“You deal with tech like this a lot?” Derek asked, gruff.

Stiles wasn’t sure if Derek was trying to distract from how he’d had an emotion for a moment there, or to make the situation as a whole less awkward, or what, but he took the bait regardless.

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles said, “we stop bad guys with all kinds of wacky tech, but we also have a tech guy ourselves. You met Danny. He’s super smart, built all our gadgets.”

“When did you start doing this?”

Stiles squinted up at Derek, a little suspicious. Derek wasn’t really looking at him, more like down at their knees, which were kind of overlapping in a way Stiles wasn’t thinking about at _all_. Maybe Derek did have to pee and was trying to distract himself.

“We started training in middle school but didn’t get into it professionally til two years ago. My dad made me wait til I was 16.”

Derek nodded at that, like he’d realized something, so Stiles shook the hand stuck to his shoulder just a little.

“What?”

“You were in middle school when I left town,” Derek said. “I was wondering why I didn’t know any of you if we’re close in age.’

“Oh, are we?” Stiles asked. “Close in age?”

He’d known Derek was in high school when his family vanished, but Stiles had barely been a teenager, so there was still a lot of wiggle room there. Derek squinted down at Stiles now like he wasn’t sure if he was joking.

“I’m going to be 21 soon,” Derek said slowly, like he still wasn’t sure, and Stiles blinked.

“You’ve probably been able to buy alcohol since you were twelve,” Stiles said.

“Werewolves can’t get drunk,” Derek replied, and Stiles was _pretty_ sure that was a deliberately obtuse answer, but he couldn’t be certain.

“Are you fucking with me?” Stiles asked. “If I check your ID will it say that you’re actually going to be 41 soon?”

Derek actually rolled his eyes, and Stiles let out a laugh.

“Okay, now maybe I believe you,” he said. “You know, it’s a little weird that I didn’t know how old you were already, since my dad knows everyone in town and whatever. But I guess there were a lot of you, right?”

Stiles hadn’t noticed how Derek’s shoulders has loosened until he felt them tighten up again under his hand.

“Shit,” Stiles said, his own shoulders drawing up to his ears. “Sorry, shit, I really am, I hate when people bring up my mom.”

Stiles cut himself off abruptly. He really, really didn’t want to say anything else about the subject, but Derek was staring down at their knees intently, and Stiles could feel the first wisps of panic beginning to build in his chest.

Before he came up with something else undoubtedly even more awkward to say, the back door of the animal hospital creaked open. Derek pulled away completely, turning toward the door, wrenching Stiles’s arm awkwardly. It didn’t take long for Danny and Allison to get everyone separated, and Derek was gone before Stiles could get another look at him. As the rest of the gang filed out of the animal hospital, Allison threw an arm over Stiles’s shoulder.

“Your dad’s working the night shift, right?” she asked. “Wanna sleep over?”

Stiles dragged his eyes away from the parking spot where Derek’s stupid fancy car had been when they arrived, and agreed.

-

Stiles asked Kate to train him the week his mother died.

It had been an accident. It wasn’t like bad guys went around shooting civilians or dropping them off buildings when the good guys refused to cooperate. Stiles’s mom had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She’d gotten hit by shrapnel after some one-off bad guy’s tech backfired. It was all over the news, and Stiles didn’t want to hear another report about it. He didn’t want to have to hear another report like that ever again.

So he decided to become an agent too.

“You’re using pseudonyms,” Stiles’s dad had said, when Chris called the sheriff over to their house to talk about it. “People will probably still know who you are because of your family, Allison, but you’re both young. If you’re getting into the business at this age, it would be safer to use fake names.”

“I can agree to that,” Chris said, eyeing Kate warily.

“People respect our name,” Kate said, eyeing Allison thoughtfully. “You could rule this business if you use it.”

“I’m going to be the best no matter what name I use,” Allison replied easily.

There was a little bit of tension there, Stiles knew - already, Allison was uncomfortable with some of the techniques Kate taught her, and already she was carving her own path. It was true that people could still figure out that she was an Argent, and Stiles’s real name too if they made the effort. But Stiles’s dad wanted them to use pseudonyms, and Allison wanted to as well, and Kate smiled with genuine warmth as she took in Allison’s squared shoulders and set jaw.

“I’m sure you two will have a fun time coming up with names,” Kate said. “How soon do you wanna start training?”

-

A text notification woke Stiles up, and he dug around blindly for a minute in the nest of pillows and blankets he’d built himself on Allison’s floor before he found his phone. It was a text from Scott.

_liam dunbar went missing yesterday. hes a freshman on the lacrosse team and a good kid :(_

“Shit,” Stiles said, wiping a hand roughly across his face.

He hauled himself out of the nest and threw himself onto Allison’s bed, shoving until she woke up enough to give him space. He got under the blankets and rolled so that they were face to face, or as much as they could get with Allison’s head buried in a pillow. He held the text up for her to read.

“Shit,” she said, her voice raspy. “He’s the youngest one to go missing so far, right?”

“Yeah, I think it’s been adults til now,” Stiles said, “but I’m gonna double check with my dad. I’ll find out if the school’s gonna put up any security measures too.”

“I know it’s not our jurisdiction or whatever but I wish we could help,” Allison said quietly.

“I know,” Stiles said.

“This job is tough sometimes, kids,” Kate said from the open doorway.

Stiles jumped. They had to keep the door open when Stiles was over, which Stiles couldn’t blame Allison’s parents for even if they were especially terrifying about enforcing it, but Stiles had been tired enough the previous night to forget that Kate was around too.

“Hey, research boy,” Kate continued, leaning against the wall, “You hear anything about those wolves appearing in the area?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, “but not much more than that.”

He wasn’t awake enough to to try to figure out what information she could be trying to get out of him, not that he even had information to accidentally give her. Kate stared at him for a long moment before changing the subject.

“You two were out late. Did taking down Leon really take that long?”

Allison fought her way to a sitting position, her hair everywhere, to glower at Kate.

“We took her down _so fast_ ,” she said.

Kate’s expression softened. Victoria and Chris were weak for grumpy morning Allison too, rather than scared like Stiles sensibly was.

“Then where were you?” Kate asked. “Finally get some fake IDs?”

Allison shoved her hair back and took a deep breath, probably waking herself up enough to actually deal with Kate.

“Some friends needed some help.”

“I know these friends?”

“Probably not,” Stiles said quickly. “They’re barely even friends, really. We just got to know them recently. Not a big deal.”

“I don’t know,” Kate said. “New friends tend to be a big deal in Beacon Hills.”

“Not these friends,” Stiles said, ignoring the look Allison was giving him.

“Alright,” Kate said in a way that meant she’d bring it up again later. “See you nerds at breakfast.”

They waited a good two minutes after she left, as they always did, before Allison smacked Stiles on the thigh.

“ _Hey_ ,” he hissed.

“Lie better! What the hell?”

“We’re asleep!” Stiles said. “She’s scary! You’re scary!”

Allison picked up a pillow and placed it over Stiles’s face. He didn’t move it til he got another text notification. Allison grabbed her phone at the same time.

“Derek cleared me for next Friday’s lacrosse game exclamation point smiley face,” Allison read. “I hope you guys come exclamation point exclamation point smiley face smiley face smiley face.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody in the world attends the lacrosse game, Jackson reveals his deal, and Allison has a revelation.

“Nothing,” Danny said. “Absolutely nothing.”

Stiles groaned and flopped across his bed, nearly knocking off his laptop and losing sight of Danny in the Skype window.

“Not that I don’t appreciate this view of your happy trail,” Danny said, and Stiles yelped and pulled his shirt down as he sat back up.

He moved the laptop back onto his lap, scowling.

“There’s  _ nothing _ about Professor Dementor’s tech getting stolen?” he asked, and then held up his hands in surrender when Danny shot him an annoyed look. “I know, sorry, it’s just weird that there’s no record of it, and it’s weird that his tech was used in Beacon Hills when he’s locked up, and it’s  _ weird  _ that it was used on our were - hi Dad, hello Father, how are you this evening?”

Stiles knew that the pose he sprawled into across his bed, as his dad entered his room, was far from natural, but his dad was more than used to it. He raised an eyebrow at Stiles.

“Shop talk?” his dad asked, and Stiles nodded. “Okay, well, I’m heading over to the game now, you know, to work on setting up the extra security measures. I’ll see you there, son.”

“See you there,” Stiles replied.

Once his dad was out of earshot, he made a  _ phew _ gesture at Danny.

“Is the only reason you’re not telling your dad about the werewolf stuff because Derek will threaten to kill you some more?” Danny asked. “We usually keep your dad pretty informed.”

“He’s busy trying to figure out why people keep going missing,” Stiles said. “And it’s just three werewolves… probably. No need to panic. Probably.”

“Even though we don’t know who one of those werewolves even is. And we don’t know how one of those werewolves became a werewolf. So realistically it could happen to someone else at any time.”

Stiles rubbed a hand over his face.

“I’ll think about it,” he said finally. “But I don’t wanna involve him in anything I don’t have to. There’s a reason I only tell him need-to-know stuff til after we take down the bad guy.”

Danny looked like he wanted to say something else, but then he glanced at his phone.

“I’ve gotta head over to the game,” he said. “Wish me luck with not getting mauled if Scott can’t control himself.”

-

Stiles expected to hit the brakes outside of Allison’s house, wait for her to climb in, and then head straight to the school, but Allison wasn’t waiting on the sidewalk when he pulled up. After an unanswered text and a missed call, he turned off the car and went to knock on the door. Right as he lifted his arm, the door swung open, and he jumped. Kate was standing on the other side.

“Stilinski,” she said cheerfully. “I hear there’s a big game tonight.”

Allison appeared over her shoulder a second later, looking apologetic and a little desperate as she put on her jacket.

“Oh, uh, not that big,” Stiles said, shrugging widely and not moving out of the doorway. “We’re probably gonna lose, you know. I don’t think it’ll be that exciting. I’m just going for the soft pretzels.”

“Great,” Kate said, doing that thing where she somehow shoved someone out of the way without physically touching them. “You can buy me one.”

She winked and headed straight for the passenger seat of his car.

“I know,” Allison hissed before Stiles had the chance to even shoot her a look. “But you know how she is! It’s impossible to shake her off.”

“I guess we’re  _ really _ gonna have to hope Scott doesn’t go rabid tonight,” Stiles sighed. “Do you know why she’s so interested in coming?”

Allison shrugged and headed toward the car. Stiles tried to keep an eye on Kate as they drove to the school, but he’d always found her nearly impossible to read, and hyper-aware of when she was being watched. Once they got to the school and headed for the bleachers, he at least managed to arrange it so that Allison was sitting between them. There were more cops than usual present around the field and bleachers, though he didn’t spot his dad yet.

Scott was standing near the bench, holding his helmet under one arm and looking a little like he was going to throw up. Stiles wanted to wave, to reassure him, but he didn’t want to draw Kate’s attention to Scott. According to Danny, Scott’s newfound skills were impressive but inconsistent, and Coach Barkin hadn’t figured out what line to put him on yet.

The game started with him still pacing behind the bench. Stiles hadn’t been to a lacrosse game in a long time, not since he’d been on the team years ago, before his life got super weird and exciting. It was strange to be surrounded by it again, and stranger still that he was here  _ because _ of the thing that made his life weird and exciting, that he was there for work, basically. It would have been easy to get caught up in the game, the whistle blowing and the crashing of shoulder pads and the glare of the field’s lights. 

But Kate in the corner of his eye kept him as focused as he ever got when not knee-deep in Wikipedia or whatever. He scanned the crowd, looked out for his dad, kept an eye on Scott, bouncing his leg until he saw something that made him pause, fully and physically.

Derek Hale was standing by the concession stand, staring out at the field.

“Uh, bathroom,” Stiles said abruptly, pulling his phone out to text Allison what was up as he walked away from her.

Derek didn’t even turn to look at him as he approached, and Stiles stepped up alongside him. Derek’s line of sight was on Scott, still waiting on the sidelines.

“I guess I don’t need to ask why you’re here,” Stiles said.

He was annoyed, because it made sense, technically, for Derek to be there in case anything happened. But Kate was also there, and Stiles might have gained a lot from having Kate in his life, but he also didn’t exactly trust her. Allison agreed that Kate might want to ship the werewolves straight off to a lab if she found out about them. And they’d promised Derek, who deeply mistrusted agents, that they wouldn’t tell anyone. Kate Argent was a household name and face, and there was no telling how he’d react if he saw her.

“So, uh,” Stiles said, “are you like, being out and about in public now? Is that a thing?”

Derek, finally, turned to look at Stiles just a little, before turning back to Scott.

“I need to be here,” Derek said.

His shoulders, though, crawled a little closer to his ears. Two women walked past them and one gave Derek a mildly startled look before whispering something to the other, something Derek could undoubtedly hear. His hands shoved further into the pockets of his leather jacket, the one that Stiles unfortunately knew was much softer and warmer than it looked.

Stiles both loved and hated his own opportunism. It made him a good agent but it also made him kind of a dick. He could help Derek, but he’d be helping himself even more.

“Okay,” Stiles said. “Go around the back of the bleachers. When you come out on the other side, you have a good view of the field but no one up in the bleachers can really see you ‘cause it’s dark over there. You can be creepy to your heart’s content.”

Derek turned to look at Stiles again. Stiles made himself look back. Derek’s expression was less calculating than it was confused.

“Are you trying to help or get rid of me?” Derek asked, and his tone wasn’t accusatory at all, though it was a little frustrated.

“Uh… yes?” Stiles answered after a second. Derek didn’t look satisfied with that so he continued, “Look, if you go hide in the corner, no one will bother you for being here, and no one will bother  _ me _ for you being here, right?”

He held out his hands and pasted on an awkward smile. After a moment, Derek huffed and looked away.

“You aren’t lying,” he grumbled. “And I can’t blame you for not wanting to deal with people asking you why I’m back in town.”

“Sure,” Stiles said. “Yes. That is why I want to publicly avoid you.”

Derek shot him another look, probably because Stiles’s heartbeat did something to signify the blatant lie coming out of his mouth, but then Kira popped up between them holding a soda and a pack of Starbursts.

“Oh, I didn’t think you’d actually come,” she said to Derek. “Like, it’s good that you did, but also, it’s a high school lacrosse game, and you’re…”

She trailed off, looking sheepish. Derek didn’t look any more bothered than he already had, probably because he’d gotten used to Kira.

“Derek is going over there now,” Stiles said, shoving at his shoulder, though unsurprisingly he didn’t move at all.

“That’s probably for the best,” Kira said. “I’m waiting for Scott’s mom to get her popcorn.”

At that, Derek headed toward the rear of the bleachers.

“Wait, do you want a Starburst?” Kira called after him, but he kept walking.

Stiles took a moment to marvel that Kira had gotten used to Derek too before Scott’s mom came over, smiling at Stiles a little hesitantly. He hadn’t spoken to her directly before, but he recognized her as a nurse from the hospital.

“Kira,” she said pointedly, “you didn’t tell me you’re friends with Ron Stoppable now.”

Kira looked something between guilty and embarrassed.

“His real name is Stiles,” she said, “and it’s not even a big deal. I mean, not - I’m not saying you’re not a big deal, Stiles.”

He held up his hands.

“We all know Allison’s the big deal,” he said, though for Kira’s sake he didn’t add that technically, she was friends with Allison now too.

“Oh, I know his name,” said Scott’s mom, still looking a little suspicious. “Your dad always talks my ear off about you whenever I run into him around town.”

“Ah, yeah, he does that,” Stiles said, a little embarrassed, but probably not as much as he should have been.

“We should head back to our seats so we don’t miss Scott if he gets to play,” Kira said, and Scott’s mom agreed, sufficiently distracted.

Stiles intentionally lagged behind, pulling out his phone so that he looked busy, to make sure that Kate wouldn’t get curious about Kira and Scott’s mom. Allison had texted him a thumbs up in response to his message about dealing with Derek. 

When he got back to the bleachers, someone was sitting in his seat, turned fully toward Allison so that Stiles could only see the back of his head. Allison looked mildly uncomfortable and majorly disinterested, but Kate was leaning forward, almost across Allison, her teeth bared in a smile. There was a little bit of free space in the row in front of them, so Stiles made his way there, sitting sideways on the bench so that he could face Allison, Kate, and, unfortunately, Jackson, who didn’t react to his arrival.

“So you’re taking French, right?” Jackson was saying.

“Yep,” Allison said, smiling tightly.

“I took French, you know,” Kate said. 

Jackson smiled at her, bright but brief, his eyes only leaving Allison for a moment. There was something unsettling about the way he watched her so intently, but the expression on his face was one of genuine interest, if only he could get her to offer more than a syllable. And it was also very attractive. It was an attractive face. And also he smelled very, very good.

“I’m taking Spanish,” Stiles said suddenly, without particularly choosing to.

Jackson spared him the briefest glance and the slightest twitch of his lips.

“Great,” he said, and then he turned back to Allison. “Which math class are you in?”

Stiles frowned, and then he caught Kate looking at him. She leaned in close, neither Jackson nor Allison sparing her any attention.

“The prettiest boys are always the meanest, am I right?” Kate whispered, winking.

He smiled tightly at Kate and then turned around nearly all the way in his seat to look at the field.

“Oh, Scott’s going in!” he said before he could catch himself.

He winced, and Allison kicked him in the lower back while pretending to stretch her legs, making him wince again.

“Who’s Scott?” Kate and Jackson asked simultaneously.

Allison looked between Kate and Jackson, and Stiles could tell from her expression that she was torn between keeping Scott safe from Kate and using him to get Jackson to back off.

“No one really,” Stiles said quickly. “He just never gets to play. Everyone knows it.”

“Good for him,” Kate said. “Which one is he?”

“Oh, I can’t remember his number,” Stiles said, and then he stood up and started cheering so she couldn’t ask for a last name.

Scott actually got in a few good minutes of game time before things went south - souther than they’d already been. He got knocked flat on his back, stayed down for a few seconds, and then rolled over into a crouch that, for someone paying the right kind of attention, didn’t quite look human. His head was tilted to the side and his shoulders were hunched over weirdly as he watched the player who’d taken him out. Stiles’s brain blanked out with panic.

Then Danny ran over from the goal, thankfully not too far away, and pushed Scott down onto his side. He poked at Scott a few more times, using his stick, not getting too close, until Scott jumped up and  _ ran _ . He left the field, heading toward the school.

“What the fuck was that?” asked the man sitting next to Stiles.

“Who’s McCall, anyway?” asked a woman nearby.

Stiles jumped up out of his seat and turned to look at Allison for a long moment.

“I’m gonna go find my dad,” he said. 

He didn’t offer any kind of explanation for Kate or Jackson’s sake. Hopefully Allison would stay on top of her aunt, hopefully Derek was heading to Scott, hopefully Kira was coming up with a story to tell Scott’s mom. Stiles could tell from the look on Allison’s face that she was slipping into damage control mode just as much as he was.

As he fought his way out of the bleachers, he got a text from Kira:  _ melissa assumed scott had an asthma attack and then got stage fright so that’s what we’re going with. i’m keeping her in our seats. _

Luckily, after he made it out of the bleachers, it didn’t take long for Stiles to actually spot his dad, who was doing his own kind of damage control, trying to get the crowd to relax.

“Dad,” Stiles said as he ran over. “You can tell people Scott had an asthma attack.”

He gestured to his phone, and his dad gave him a weird look, probably wondering how Stiles already had that information, but Stiles took off toward the school. He’d have plenty of questions to field from his dad later, and now wasn’t the time to worry about if he’d have to let his dad in on his latest mess.

The locker rooms were in the part of the school closest to the field, the part of the school Scott had been headed toward, and as soon as Stiles entered the building he could hear yelling coming from the boys’ locker room. As he got closer he could distinguish Derek and Scott’s voices, though not the words they were saying yet. Scott sounded, if Stiles was being honest, a little whiny for someone who could’ve just gone fully wolfy on a lot of people, and Derek yet again shocked Stiles with how  _ not deep _ his voice was.

The yelling stopped as Stiles stepped into the locker room, and he had a moment to wonder why before a hand grabbed him by his jacket at the scruff of his neck. Stiles whipped a gadget out of his jacket pocket and spun as best he could to use it, but Derek, of course it was Derek, grabbed his wrist too.

“Lipstick?” Derek asked drily.

“Danny’s a jerk,” Stiles replied automatically.

Derek let go, and Stiles shoved the lipstick tube back into his pocket, turning around to see Scott hunched over on one of the benches.

“Hey, pal,” Stiles said. “You didn’t eat anyone! And you almost got a goal!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Derek shoot him a disbelieving look, but Stiles didn’t change his encouraging tone.

“I guess,” Scott said morosely.

“You just need to practice some more,” Stiles said. “At the werewolf part. You did a good job with the lacrosse part.”

“Really?” Scott asked, starting to sound a little better.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, and he started to move toward Scott, but Derek grabbed him by the shoulder.

Scott looked up, and his eyes were still glowing gold, with wild muttonchops down the sides of his face, the teeth and caveman forehead still in place too. Stiles jumped just a little before he could stop himself, and Scott’s face fell, and he put his head between his hands and his elbows on his knees. With the hand still on his shoulder, Derek tugged Stiles back so that he was standing not quite behind Derek, but definitely further away from Scott than Derek was. Stiles felt his face heat with a combination of guilt and embarrassment.

“I can take care of myself, you know,” he said, crossing his arms and pulling his shoulder out from under Derek’s hand.

“Right, that’s what the lipstick was for,” Derek scoffed, crossing his too.

“I’m more than happy to show you what it does,” Stiles said loudly, digging into his pocket. “Maybe it’ll be good for you to be glued to a bench in the locker room for a while. Character growth, like in  _ Holes _ .”

Derek gave him a look that was equal parts annoyed and confused, holding one hand out in front of himself as Stiles finally unearthed the lipstick from his pocket. It flung out of his grasp and bounced off a nearby locker, rolling to a stop at Derek’s feet. Derek squatted down and picked it up delicately, looking it over at a distance.

“Be careful,” Stiles said. “I wouldn’t want you to accidentally spray it in your face. Oh, wait! Yes I would.”

“Uh, guys,” Scott interrupted, “you should probably get out of here before the game ends or like, my mom comes to check on me.”

When Stiles looked over at him, his face and eyes and everything were back to normal, and he looked amused, which was a little offensive because Stiles was ready to fight Derek.

“Fine,” Stiles said, holding out a hand. “Give me back my tech.”

“Are you sure?” Derek asked, raising his eyebrows, all faux concern. “You might trip on your way out and glue yourself to someone’s jock strap.”

Stiles  _ seethed _ , baring his teeth as he grabbed the tube out of Derek’s hand.

“Seriously,” Scott said. “Derek, stop being mean to Stiles. You guys have to go - oh.”

Stiles looked up from tucking the lipstick tube back into his pocket. Derek was nowhere in sight. As he stared at the empty space between the rows of lockers, Kate’s voice popped into his head:  _ The prettiest boys are always the meanest _ .

Stiles flinched with his whole body.

“Let’s not,” he said.

“What?” Scott asked.

-

Stiles kept hearing Kate’s voice echoing in the back of his head the rest of the night, as the lacrosse game wound down, as he drove her and Allison home, as he brushed his teeth and got ready for bed.

Stiles had come out to Kate by accident. He wasn’t intentionally hiding his bisexuality from her, not really, but he also didn’t particularly want to talk about it with her. He was 16 and generally uncomfortable around Kate when she Skyped to check in, but not really able to articulate why. Allison could sense it, and she knew Kate was overwhelming at best and scathingly observant at worst, so she usually played some kind of interference.

He’d arrived at Allison’s house to find her still talking to Kate, and he got roped into sitting on the edge of the bed behind her desk chair, where Kate could see him over Allison’s shoulder.

“There’s  _ no _ boys at school worth gushing about?” Kate asked.

It was one of her favorite topics and one of Allison’s least favorite. She wasn’t interested in dating, couldn’t be bothered when she already had to balance saving the world and getting her homework done. She always got huffy when the topic came up, especially with Kate, and normally Stiles derailed the conversation if he could, but Kate plowed on, ignoring Allison’s annoyance.

“What about that boy you did your group project with?” Kate continued. “Greenberg? Is he cute?”

Stiles let out a choked sound that was half amusement and half disbelief.

“Greenberg is  _ literally _ the least cute boy at school,” he said, outraged.

Kate let out a thoughtful noise and narrowed her eyes.

“Who’s the cutest boy in school then, Stiles?” she asked. “Danny?”

Stiles jumped, and he felt his whole face slowly turn pink and warm. He’d had a serious crush on Danny throughout middle school, the kind that would’ve been obvious to everyone if it’d been about a girl. As it was, it’d taken Stiles a while to figure out that it was a crush, and that it meant he was into boys too. His dad and Allison and Danny hadn’t really been surprised when he came out to them, but it was a shock to lots of people at school when he started talking about it openly, and he didn’t know of anyone else who’d figured him out on their own.

“Danny’s ego doesn’t need the help,” Stiles managed to say after a minute.

“Who else, then?” Kate asked, and when Stiles didn’t answer immediately, she huffed out an annoyed sigh. “What,  _ neither _ of you will talk to me about boys? Come on, Stiles, you know I can’t get anything out of Allison. Help a girl out.”

One of them managed to change the topic somehow. That’s how it went every time Kate brought up boys. She got smirky and amused, dug in until they could distract her. She made Stiles feel uncomfortable about his sexuality in a way he never felt otherwise. 

_ The prettiest boys are always the meanest _ , she’d said directly to him, like there was some kind of solidarity between them, like she knew what he was thinking as he looked at Jackson. Like she’d know, too, what was going on in his head if she saw him interact with Derek.

Kate wasn’t easy to get out of his head on a good day, but there was one thing he was certain of: Kate couldn’t know what Stiles was thinking about Derek, because Stiles couldn’t figure it out himself.

-

Stiles managed to mostly put thoughts of both Kate and Derek out of his head until he got to school Monday morning and Scott popped up next to Stiles’s locker.

“Hey,” Scott said, leaning in close to talk quietly. “I know Derek said you couldn’t come by the house, but you should come watch practice some time.”

“I don’t know,” Stiles said immediately. “I really don’t think he’d want me there.”

“I want you there,” Scott said. “Besides, Derek had the most personality I’ve ever seen him have when he was fighting with you the other day. I think it’s good for him.”

Stiles stared at Scott, wondering for a hysterical moment if he was trying to arrange a playdate for Derek.

“I’ll think about it,” he managed.

“Okay, I’ll text you to let you know when one is happening,” Scott said, clapping Stiles on the shoulder and heading down the hallway.

In a daze, Stiles grabbed his books and slammed his locker shut and turned to head toward his first class, but Jackson was standing in his way, a determined expression on his face.

“Stilinski,” he said. “You’re friends with Allison.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, and the part of his brain that was focused on how good Jackson smelled was excited that Jackson had finally noticed.

He physically shook his head and reminded himself that Jackson had been kind of a dick, and then reminded himself not to think about Kate’s commentary on the matter.

“Allison doesn’t seem interested in me,” Jackson said, and then after a long pause he added, “Explain.”

“Not used to rejection, huh?” Stiles said before he could stop himself.

Jackson slammed a hand against the locker beside Stiles’s head, glowering. Stiles’s mind jumped through about twelve reactions before settling appropriately on  _ bad _ .

“Okay, okay,” Stiles said, holding up his hands. “It’s… not you… it’s her?”

Jackson glared at him before a little longer before huffing and walking away. Stiles slumped against the locker in relief. Still, he wasn’t  _ too _ worried about it until he got to lunch and Danny said that something similar had happened to him.

“He shoved me into a bookshelf in the middle of the library,” Danny said. “I know there’s not normally a ton of people in there before classes start, but it’s  _ quiet _ . People heard.”

Allison twisted the cap of her water bottle off and then back on again, frowning down at her lunch tray.

“You haven’t seen him yet today, right?” Stiles asked.

Allison shook her head, letting go of the water bottle and placing her hands flat on the table.

“No,” she said. “And I know that if he does anything weird, I can take him.”

“But you shouldn’t have to,” Stiles said, completing the thought. “Do you think maybe you should talk to a teacher or something about it? He’s new so they probably don’t know yet that he’s… weird or whatever.”

“I don’t know,” Allison said. “Maybe - I’ll wait and see how he is next time I run into him? And I’ll decide from there.”

“We can stay with you between classes and stuff if you want,” Stiles said, and Allison rolled her eyes.

“I can do a lot more damage than either of you could, thanks,” she said, and when Stiles put a hand to his chest in mock offense, she stuck her tongue out, which was the reaction he was looking for.

-

Over the next few days, Allison mostly managed to avoid Jackson, as did Stiles and Danny, but Friday afternoon, Allison ran into Jackson while out looking for a bigger crossbow. According to her text he was being “manageably weird,” but Stiles and Danny still decided to run a thorough background check on him. They set up shop in Danny’s room, him sitting at his desk surrounded by a wall of tech and Stiles sprawled out on Danny’s bed with his laptop. 

“None of the Jackson Whittemores popping up seem to be this one,” Danny said. “Maybe he changed his name.”

“Maybe he  _ is  _ one of the other Jackson Whittemores but he’s a shapeshifter,” Stiles said. “Wait, no, we just fought one of those. Maybe he’s a time traveler.”

Danny let out a rude noise of disagreement. They fought about the probability of time travel a lot.

“Regardless,” Danny said after a minute, “it’s majorly suspicious that there’s no info on him.”

“Yeah, what high schooler has no social media presence whatsoever?”

“Or a  _ birth certificate or social security number _ ,” Danny said.

“Okay, yeah, I get it,” Stiles said, rolling his eyes. “We know this is weird but we don’t know what it means. What do we do?”

“Maybe Allison can nick his phone and then I can break into it,” Danny offered casually.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” Stiles asked, and then he texted Allison their plan.

It only took Allison a couple of minutes to get ahold of Jackson’s phone, because she was perfect, but shortly after she texted them she also called Stiles, whispering frantically as soon as he picked up.

“This isn’t a cell phone. It’s Finstock’s tech.”

“What?” Stiles hissed back, though he wasn’t sure why he was lowering his voice too. “Where are you?”

“In the bathroom,” Allison said. “This is made to look like a cell phone but it’s the same tech as Finstock and Shego’s communication devices. I’ve broken enough of them to know.”

“Don’t break this one,” Stiles said quickly. “Can you sneak away from him before he notices?”

“He’s probably already noticed,” Allison said. “I left him alone. He probably went to grab his phone first thing.”

There was a loud crash suddenly, and Allison cursed. She didn’t answer when Stiles asked what was happening, and all he could hear was another few crashes and some scuffling. Danny grabbed several devices off of his desk and headed toward the door.

“You’re driving,” he said. “I’m tracking all the chips she has on her. Head toward the hunting store and I’ll let you know when to change course.”

Stiles breathed deeply as they got into the car and he started to drive as fast as he could without getting pulled over. He kept his hands tight against the steering wheel so that he couldn’t tell as much that they were shaking. He had some gear in his backpack on the back seat and in his pockets. He had Danny. Allison was Allison. It’d be fine.

They ended up parked outside an abandoned warehouse not too far from the hunting store. Finstock did tend to go for abandoned warehouses, but not this close and not this unguarded. Danny’s scan didn’t pick up extra guards or any kind of tech protecting the place. Heat sensors told them that there were three people near the front of the building, so they went around the back once Stiles passed some gear off to Danny.

It was dark and dank inside of the warehouse. There didn’t seem to be any working electricity, but it was still light enough outside that Stiles could make his way around crates and boxes without crashing into anything. Finstock was yelling somewhere nearby, but Stiles couldn’t get close enough to see him without being seen, so he settled in behind a row of crates and gestured for Danny to do the same.

“This wasn’t the plan at all,” Finstock was saying. “You messed everything up, you imbecile!”

“I panicked,” Jackson whined. “She got my phone, and I was right that she could tell you’d made it. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Kidnapping her was not the way to go,” Shego said drily, and then, “She’s conscious, by the way.”

There was a small scuffle, followed by Allison grunting. Stiles shot Danny a confused look. There’d only been three bodies on the heat sensor.

“Well, you’ve got me,” Allison said. “What’s your plan now?”

There was a long pause.

“What was your plan in the first place?” Allison asked.

“Something stupid,” Shego said primly.

“It wasn’t stupid,” Finstock yelled, because he only ever seemed to yell. “It should have worked! You were supposed to become my captive back at my lab, where I have all of my equipment, not just  _ hunting gear _ . This fool was supposed to be the bait. I would kidnap him, and you would come to rescue him, and then I’d have you.”

“Jackson?” Allison asked.

“Yes, of course,” Finstock said.

“Why didn’t you just kidnap an existing student?” Allison asked.

“You weren’t supposed to rescue him because he’s your classmate,” Finstock roared. “You were supposed to be rescuing your boyfriend!”

“My boyfriend,” Allison said.

“He made me build the perfect boy,” Shego said in that tone of voice she used when she was examining her nails. “Handsome. Only interested in you and no one else. Pheromones and everything.”

Stiles barely resisted smacking his hand to his forehead.  _ Pheromones _ .

“I built you the perfect robot boyfriend,” Shego said airily. “But it didn’t work. I told you it wouldn’t work, boss.”

“Why did you tell him it wouldn’t work?” Allison asked slowly.

“She said it wouldn’t work because you like girls, not boys,” Finstock huffed.

There was a very long pause, and Stiles and Danny made eye contact. Danny looked somewhere between concerned and furious, and Stiles was sure he looked the same.

“Allison, I thought you already knew,” Shego said, sounding genuinely concerned.

Stiles decided to unpack the fact that Shego used Allison’s real name later and took advantage of the moment to leap out from behind his row of crates, brandishing his Taser. Allison was tied up and propped against a box, looking completely shell-shocked. The other three startled, Shego lighting up her hands, though she looked distracted.

“Here’s an idea,” Stiles said darkly. “Leave.”

“No!” Finstock yelled automatically, but Shego looked back at Allison again, the worry still not totally gone from her expression.

She shook the flame things from her hands and grabbed Finstock by the arm and shoved. Stiles watched them go, still holding his Taser at the ready. When he turned back toward Allison, he was startled to see Jackson on the floor, eyes open but body unmoving, with Danny leaning over to him, several devices already plugged into the android, or whatever he was.

“Okay,” Stiles said, not really sure if he should deal with Danny and Jackson first, or Allison.

“I’ve got this,” Danny said. “I can probably reprogram him to be autonomous and not influenced by evil or whatever.”

“Is he… conscious?” Stiles asked.

“Oh, yeah, I just froze him,” Danny said, and then he did something and Jackson started blinking again, though he didn’t appear to be able to move below the neck.

“This is intimate,” Jackson sneered as Danny stuck a plug into his ear. “Buy me dinner first.”

“You’re not my type,” Danny said, and Jackson scoffed loudly.

“I’m  _ everyone’s _ type,” he said.

“Not mine, apparently,” Allison said.

Danny froze Jackson again, scooting over to begin untying Allison. Stiles knelt down at her other side and began to do the same. He reached up to push Allison’s hair out of her face, but she lowered her head so he couldn’t make eye contact.

“Did you both know?” she asked quietly. “Did everyone know except me?”

Stiles glanced and Danny, who looked as uncomfortable as he felt.

“I didn’t know,” Stiles said. “But I’m not surprised either. Like how you felt about me, right?”

“But you knew it about yourself,” she protested. “Someone else didn’t have to tell you. Someone who doesn’t even know you that well.”

She let out a laugh that turned into a sob halfway through, and as the ropes fell away she brought a hand up to rub at her face.

“I mean, you do see her pretty often,” Stiles said, and Danny smacked him on the arm. “But I didn’t know the whole time. I felt it for a long time before I figured out what it was.”

“I didn’t know if what I thought I was feeling...  _ counted _ for a long time,” Danny added. “I don’t know why I thought that. But I felt like I was making it up, or I was doing it for attention, or it was something everyone felt and just ignored, and that actually being gay was something different. It doesn’t make a lot of sense now but it’s how I felt.”

Allison nodded slowly and rubbed at her eyes, wiping away the few tears that had gathered there.

“This isn’t it, you know,” Stiles said. “Just because someone else said it and you think it might be true doesn’t mean you just  _ are _ and that’s what it is now. You can think on it and figure it out and you don’t have to tell anybody and you can tell us to shut up if we’re not helping.”

Allison laughed again, and this time she smiled, though it was wobbly.

“Okay, help me up,” she said, and they each grabbed an arm and pulled. “What are we gonna do with him?”

They all turned to look at Jackson, whose eyes were open and frozen.

“I think I hate this,” Stiles said. “Danny, can you make him stop smelling like I need his approval and attention even when he’s a jerk?”

“Probably, but I don’t know if I will,” Danny said thoughtfully.

“I definitely hate this,” Stiles said.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Allison fight a big bad they can't handle and have to ask for help.

Stiles woke up Wednesday morning with several texts waiting for him. One was from Scott, and it said,  _ derek made me give him ur number!?!? _

The second was presumably from Derek:  _ There is a third werewolf. _

Stiles rolled onto his back and rubbed at his eyes, letting out a slow breath. Another werewolf was bad for a number of reasons, including that they didn’t know who it was or how it got turned. Derek texting Stiles was also bad for a number of reasons, including the funny feeling in his stomach when he’d read Scott’s text and the disappointment he’d felt that Derek’s was essentially work-related. Not that there was any reason to suspect it wouldn’t be.

On the other hand, it was surprising that Derek We-Don’t-Trust-Agents Hale had given him this information. And there was the funny stomach feeling again, and so this still went on the list of reasons Derek texting him was bad.

Stiles had suspicions about what the funny feeling was, but he didn’t want to think about them.

He sat up and stared at his phone for a long time. Finally, he texted back:  _ super! thanks for letting me know - will see what i can find out.  _

That was reasonably professional and unannoying and probably wouldn’t make Derek regret getting his number or sharing important information with him. After a couple of minutes of waiting for Derek to reply, he shoved his phone under his pillow and got up to get ready for school. When he left, he almost forgot to grab his phone, which still showed no reply. He was disappointed but unsurprised by the blank screen, and equally disappointed but unsurprised by his disappointment.

-

Allison hadn’t brought up the mission, or what they’d learned during it, in the days since it happened, so Stiles and Danny hadn’t either. Things were mildly awkward, but Stiles was used to powering through that. When he got to school, he leaned up against the locker next to Danny’s, and Allison did the same on Danny’s other side. She looked like she needed to be distracted, and Stiles knew he did too, so he griped about their math homework until Allison started to laugh. A minute before the bell was due to ring, Scott and Kira came over, looking serious.

“Someone else went missing,” Kira said. “Another student.”

“Her name’s Hayden,” Scott added. “She’s friends with Liam.”

“Liam who also went missing?” Stiles clarified, and Scott nodded.

“She was walking home from work two nights ago and never arrived,” he said.

Stiles pulled his phone out of his pocket, tapping it against his chin.

“Do you know where Liam was when he went missing?” he asked.

“It was after lacrosse,” Scott said. “He takes a shortcut through the woods.”

Stiles typed out a text to his dad:  _ were all the missing people out walking around town at night when they disappeared? _

He wasn’t sure that his dad would answer either way, and if his guess was right surely his dad had already put that together himself, but there was no harm in asking. Especially not when there was other weird stuff going on in town, not that there were any apparent connections.

The bell rang, and Stiles clapped Scott on the shoulder. Scott smiled kind of sadly before heading off to his class, Kira trailing behind him. The rest of them started toward class as well, but Stiles’s phone buzzed. It was a text back from his dad.

_ Don’t get involved in this _ , it said, which meant Stiles was right.

“Hey, so here’s an idea,” Stiles said casually, and Danny and Allison both looked at him suspiciously. “Look, a little wolfy told me that there’s definitely a third you-know-what in town, and we need to look into that anyway, so why don’t we look into this whole deal too?”

“A little wolfy,” Danny repeated, which wasn’t a no.

-

The three of them headed to Danny’s house after school to see what other information they could find. Allison, as usual, sat in the passenger seat of Stiles’s Jeep with her feet up on the dashboard.

“Maybe your dad is right about not getting involved,” she said. “There’s no indication that whatever’s happening to these people is anything but a regular human kidnapper.”

“Sure, but we have resources they don’t,” Stiles said. “And our sick research skills and Danny’s hacking and tech don’t only work on mad scientists and evil geniuses and ninja monkeys and swamp monsters and whatever.”

“I just feel like we have a lot going on already,” Allison said. “The werewolf stuff isn’t enough for you?”

“That’s one thing,” Stiles said.

He allowed himself to admit that it was only one thing for everyone else. He knew the werewolf thing was kind of becoming two separate but connected things in his twisted, traitorous, bisexual brain.

“Okay, the werewolf stuff, and the history paper, and - ” Allison cut herself off.

“And?” Danny asked from the back seat, which was surprising, because he rarely ever pushed.

Allison huffed and slumped down in her seat.

“Fine,” she said. “And my personal identity crisis.”

Stiles cheered and thumped the ceiling of the car twice, and Danny clapped sarcastically. Stiles didn’t know how he made clapping sound sarcastic, but he did it.

“Shut up,” Allison said. “Fine. We’re talking about it now.”

“Okay, what do you want to talk about?” Stiles asked as he pulled into Danny’s driveway and turned off the car. “Boobs? Carly Rae Jepsen? Compulsory heterosexuality?”

“Oh my god,” Allison and Danny said simultaneously, and then Stiles was the only one still in the car.

He scrambled out and up the front steps after them, sheepish.

“Sorry, I got excited!” he said as they entered the house, not bothering to lower his voice because no one else was home. “I mean, we’re an entirely queer superhero team or whatever now, right? That’s so cool!”

Allison huffed out a laugh, heading up the stairs.

“I guess we are,” she said, speaking her next words carefully. “Because I’m gay. I’m a lesbian.”

She stopped halfway down the hallway after she said them, pausing like she was waiting for something to happen. After a moment, she let out a big breath. Danny patted her on the back, then moved past her to head into his room.

“You did it,” he said.

“I did it,” Allison repeated faintly, so Stiles put his hands on her shoulders and guided her into Danny’s room, and then he yelped, accidentally squeezing Allison’s shoulders in a death grip.

Jackson the android or whatever was propped up in the corner of Danny’s room near his desk, his eyes closed. Allison smacked Stiles’s hands until he let go, and then she went over and poked Jackson’s cheek.

“What the hell?” Stiles asked, and Danny shrugged.

“I wasn’t sure what else to do with him,” he said. “I’m still working on rewiring him to have total free will uninfluenced by Shego’s programming. I’m not convinced that if I turn him on right now he won’t imprint on me like a duckling to replace Finstock.”

“Okay,” Stiles said slowly. “Then what are you gonna do with him?”

Danny shrugged.

“Depends on how well I do,” he said. “I could make him a fake identity and set him loose, probably. He’s got enough sentience that I’m not sending him to a lab.”

“What if you don’t do well enough to set him loose?” Allison asked.

Danny shrugged again, not making eye contact. Stiles could tell from his expression that he was troubled by the prospect.

“You’ll un-evil him,” Stiles said confidently. “Now let’s hack into this police investigation, right?”

It wasn’t that Stiles doubted his dad, but he was hoping there’d be some kind of clue the police weren’t equipped to unravel. Also, having 20 tabs open and hyperfocusing on police reports about weird things people reported seeing in the woods kept him from thinking about if Derek was going to text him again or why he cared.

-

Saturday morning, when Stiles’s dad came into his room to wake him up for waffles, Stiles was already lying on his back with his legs up on the wall, staring at the ceiling. He had no more information on the third werewolf wandering through Beacon Hills, no more information on the people going missing in town, and no more texts from Derek, not that he had any actual expectations on that last front. He felt useless and restless and he couldn’t stay asleep.

His dad leaned against the doorframe, a thoughtful expression on his face. Guilty, but still not ready to talk to his dad about what was going on, Stiles rolled out of bed before his dad could start asking questions.

“Breakfast smells good, Pops,” he said, clapping his dad on the shoulder as he headed past him to the bathroom.

His dad hummed a sound that wasn’t completely satisfied, but let him go. Stiles rubbed a hand over his face once he shut the bathroom door. He hadn’t brushed his teeth yet and he was already exhausted.

Breakfast was quiet, a little uncomfortably so, but Stiles didn’t have the energy to act like it wasn’t. He ate quickly instead, getting up to wash the dishes after, and his dad didn’t say anything, but Stiles could tell he noticed that Stiles was being weird. As he was drying the plates, his Ron phone rang, which was a relief in that he could leave the kitchen, but also it meant he’d have to go save the world or whatever while unrested, and that was not so great.

“What’s the sitch?” Stiles answered, heading up to his room to put on some actual clothes.

“Nothing good,” Danny said. “It’s the Jackal.”

Stiles missed a step and banged his knee on the railing.

“So why are we being called and not Kate?” he asked.

“Everyone calling it in says they can’t reach Kate right now,” Danny said. “I don’t know why. So they’re calling for you two. Look, I know Kate’s never managed to take him down, but there’s one of her and two of you, so maybe - ”

“Kate got her ass kicked last time she fought him,” Stiles said quietly.

“I know,” Danny said, just as quiet.

Stiles breathed out a slow breath, closed his bedroom door behind him, and counted to ten.

“Alright,” he said. “How are we getting there?”

-

The Jackal was a guy named Vernon Boyd the Third or the Fifth or the Somethingth who stole ancient artifacts from museums. He claimed that the necklace he wore enabled him to be possessed by Anubis. Like, the actual canine-adjacent Egyptian god mainly associated with the afterlife. According to Kate, he was able to morph into some kind of giant, super strong jackal-type creature, and also he was some kind of elemental or he was telekinetic or something. 

There was no apparent sciencey explanation for any of it, so Stiles had always been skeptical, but Stiles knew werewolves now, so maybe he was a little more prepared to face the Jackal. But also maybe he wasn’t.

There was a cluster of small museums located in a city less than an hour away from Beacon Hills, and the Jackal had already ransacked one of them by the time Stiles and Allison were contacted. The Jackal didn’t bother with being secretive or quick because, so far in his career, he was virtually unstoppable. Stiles drove Allison himself, since they were close enough, wishing not for the first time that he had his dad’s lights and sirens. 

Still, the Jackal was only on his second museum of four by the time they arrived. Police were hanging around outside but wisely not heading inside anymore, and they looked relieved when Stiles and Allison got out of the car. A few cops were already being treated in the back of an ambulance nearby.

Stiles still hadn’t gotten used to the way that adults deferred to him and Allison when they showed up, especially since they weren’t always more qualified or less scared. Particularly this time.

“Don’t worry,” Allison said, smiling and waving as they walked right past all of the cops. “We’ll take care of everything.”

As soon as they were out of eyesight the smile dropped off of her face and she exchanged a heavy look with Stiles.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked when he yawned.

She’d asked several times in the car, because Stiles had kept yawning and rubbing at his eyes. He’d had a lot of coffee and ended up in that weird place where he was both vibrating with energy and a little bleary, and he’d been hoping it’d balance out by the time they arrived, but it hadn’t. He rubbed at his eyes one last time and squared his shoulders.

“I’m okay,” he said. “You know we’ve won when I was way worse.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Allison said with a frown, but she shook her head and continued on. “We should go slow. He takes his time. We have three museums. We can get to know his fighting style, figure out his weakness, make a plan.”

“You always make this stuff sound so easy,” Stiles said, unsure if he was complaining or thanking her.

Allison smiled either way and they headed into the museum. It was eerie how empty it was in the main hallway, considering it was early on a Saturday and the lights were all on. There was no sign of destruction here - it just looked like all the visitors had decided to leave at once for some reason.

There was a loud crash from somewhere up on the second floor, and after a moment the door of a display case flew over the balcony and shattered on the rug about ten feet in front of Stiles and Allison. She immediately headed for the stairs, pulling her crossbow out of her backpack, and Stiles followed reluctantly after her, getting out his Taser. His phone buzzed in his pocket and Stiles clapped a hand over it, though if the Jackal had enhanced hearing like certain other hairy creatures Stiles knew, then he must have already noticed them.

Near the top of the stairs, Allison crouched down low to peer up onto the landing, and Stiles did the same. Digging through a doorless display case was a large beast with light brown fur, tall pointed ears, a snout, and a heavy gold chain ending in an amulet resting against its chest. The Jackal looked to be in no rush, which was made even more disconcerting when he spoke to them over his shoulder in a deep, growling voice.

“You sure you want to bother?” he asked. “I’m gonna find what I want and you’re gonna get hurt.”

He sounded incredibly casual, maybe mildly annoyed, and also like he didn’t plan on stopping what he was doing any time soon. Allison stood and moved to the top of the stairs. Stiles followed, then tugged on Allison’s arm until they were no longer in danger of being shoved backwards down the steps by whatever kind of telekinesis the Jackal might possess. She allowed him to move her, then stepped a little closer to the Jackal. 

“Step away from the display case with your hands where I can see them,” Allison said calmly.

The Jackal sighed but otherwise kept doing what he was doing. Allison readied her crossbow, which got his attention, but all he did was raise an arm in her direction without looking. Instinctively, Allison shot at him, and a dart found purchase on the palm of his hand, electrocuting him. But he didn’t react at all, and after a moment he plucked the dart from his hand and dropped it on the ground.

Curious and frustrated, Stiles fired his Taser, the long-range nodes attaching to the Jackal’s arm with the same results. With another sigh, the Jackal wrapped a hand in the wires sticking to his arm and tugged the Taser right out of Stiles’s hand, and it broke into pieces on the ground between them.

“Come on!” Stiles said. “I put a lot of work into modifying that.”

Unsurprisingly, the Jackal ignored him. Allison shot at the Jackal with her crossbow several times in a row, and after the final dart hit, the Jackal turned toward her and swept out his arm. The crossbow flew out of Allison’s grasp and across the room in the direction the Jackal had gestured. It crashed into and dented a statue before falling to the floor. 

Stiles yelped and took a step back, and Allison sucked in a breath loudly enough for Stiles to hear it.

“Are we done yet?” the Jackal asked.

He still didn’t seem particularly bothered. Stiles could imagine Kate working herself into a fury over his calm, over the fact that he seemed to be pretty much untouchable. Next to him, Allison pressed her lips together so tightly they turned white, and then she narrowed her eyes. Stiles knew she had an idea, and that meant he had to buy her a minute. He just hoped he wouldn’t be tossed across the room like a balled-up sock in the meantime.

Stiles stepped a few feet away from Allison and toward the Jackal, shifting to the side so she would no longer be directly in the Jackal’s line of sight. He raised his arms placatingly as he went, not that the Jackal seemed to notice his movement at all. Stiles ignored the shaking, from caffeine or anxiety or both, visible in his raised hands, and he also ignored his phone when it buzzed in his pocket with another missed call.

“Heeeeeeey,” Stiles said. “Isn’t Anubis, like, the protector of the dead? Little weird that he’d possess someone just to go around robbing museums.”

“Stop talking,” the Jackal said distractedly, and then the hook of Allison’s grappling hook clonked him on the side of the head.

Slowly, the Jackal turned toward Allison, looking more pissed than pained. Stiles scrambled in his pocket, pulling out both his lipstick-shaped gadget and his phone, which showed two missed calls from Scott. It began to buzz again as Derek called him.

Stiles froze in place, his mind going blank, and he stared at his phone for a second too long.

He recovered, and he wrenched the cap off the lipstick tube and aimed it at the Jackal, and the pink elastic goo missed the Jackal entirely because Stiles was too late. The Jackal had already stepped toward Allison and waved his arm. A suit of armor flew through the air toward Allison and crashed into her, knocking her to the ground. 

Because Stiles was tired and let himself get distracted by Derek and stared at his phone for a second too long.

Allison let out a cry of pain and Stiles’s body started working again, though just barely, with a kind of tunnel vision that focused on getting done what had to be done. He ran to her side as the Jackal loped out of the room and knelt down, hauling pieces of armor out of the way. Once he got the bigger pieces off of her, Allison began to help, shoving her way free. As she sat up she held one of her arms away from her body at an awkward angle.

“I think it’s dislocated,” she panted.

Stiles got his arms around Allison as best he could and helped her to her feet, trying not to jostle her injured arm, which he failed at. She let out a horrible muffled screech of pain and leaned heavily against him once they were on their feet.

“Where did he go?” she asked, looking around suddenly.

“Absolutely  _ not _ ,” Stiles said.

He propped Allison against a display case and went around the room, gathering up all of their gear that had been tossed away by the Jackal. He shoved everything messily into his backpack, and then he put his arm around Allison and herded her toward the stairs. His phone started to buzz again when they were almost outside.

“Who keeps calling?” Allison asked, and Stiles jumped, guilty again with the reminder.

“Scott and then Derek,” he said distantly.

He felt like he was zooming in and out of tunnel vision, between a detached state and one hyperconscious of his body. One second he wasn’t breathing and the next he was aware of every muscle necessary to get air into his lungs. Suddenly they were standing next to an ambulance and Allison was being taken from him by EMTs.

“Answer the phone,” Allison said from far away. “Stiles, answer the phone.”

He did so automatically, without looking at the screen, without realizing it had been buzzing again. He didn’t say anything.

“Stiles?” asked Derek’s voice. “Stiles, I can hear you breathing, I - what’s happening?”

Stiles sat down on the curb near the ambulance. It was loud and there were a lot of people and he tucked his head against his knees and focused on breathing. Derek was still talking, but Stiles couldn’t focus on what he was saying. Scott’s voice was there too, after a bit, his tone panicked. That was something to do - calm Scott down. Stiles centered in on that, the need to fix, and he slowly came back into himself.

“He sounds better,” Derek said to Scott, and Stiles choked on a hollow laugh.

“Sorry,” he said hoarsely. “You called at a bad time. Why  _ did _ you call?”

“I asked you to come watch me practice today and you were supposed to be here an  _ hour  _ ago,” Scott said. “I was worried.”

“Oh,” Stiles said blankly. 

Scott had let him know the date and time a while ago, and Stiles had completely forgotten. Even if he hadn’t been called in to fight the Jackal, he never would’ve shown up. He was grateful to have forgotten, actually, because the added anticipation of seeing Derek might have killed him.

“Sorry,” Stiles added eventually. “I had to go to work.”

“I didn’t think you’d miss the opportunity to come be annoying if you had a choice,” Derek said, dry.

Stiles pressed his cheek harder against his knee and sighed. He knew he was going to spend the next week deciphering Derek’s tone, but thankfully he was too exhausted to start yet.

“I thought something bad happened,” Scott added.

“Well,” Stiles said, and then Allison screamed as her shoulder was reset, because of course she’d insist they do it on the spot rather than going to the hospital now.

“What was that?” Derek demanded, the urgency returned to his voice. “Where are you?”

“I told you, work,” Stiles said. “I got Allison - she got hurt. And our bad guy is still here and it’s just me and… We couldn’t even do it when it was the two of us.”

Stiles pressed his head to his knees again and focused on breathing normally.

“Derek, we have to help,” Scott said suddenly, in a tone of voice Stiles had never hear him use.

There was a long pause, and Stiles imagined Scott squaring his shoulders and looking at Derek very seriously. He couldn’t imagine the expression Derek would make in return.

“They need our help, Derek,” Scott said, firm and sure.

“We don’t trust agents,” Derek said automatically, like he’d said it to Scott many times. “And we aren’t going to help them do whatever - ”

“They’re our friends,” Scott said. “Or at least they’re my friends, and I’m going to help them. You don’t have to come, but you should.”

Stiles felt some of the tightness leave his lungs and a wave of warmth sweep through his tense body. He didn’t know Scott very well yet, and he hadn’t seen this side of Scott before, but it felt right. Stiles knew, suddenly, how much he would do to help Scott, too.

When Scott spoke again, the phone was no longer on speaker.

“Where are you?” he asked, and Stiles gave him the location.

“It’s kind of far,” Stiles said, “but there are two more museums for the Jackal to search through, unless he finds what he’s looking for before then. He’ll probably still be rooting around when you get here, and I’ll feel better by then.”

“Okay,” Scott said. “You just tell me what we need to do when I get there and I’ll do it. And hopefully Derek too.”

Stiles didn’t hold out any hope for that last part happening.

He climbed up beside Allison in the back of the ambulance where they were strapping up her arm so that she couldn’t move it around.

“Do you feel better?” she asked immediately.

“Me?” Stiles asked. “I’m fine. You’re not fine.”

“I’m not going to the hospital,” Allison said shortly. “And I’m not taking any pain medication that might cloud my judgment or my reflexes - ”

She grunted in pain as the EMT touched her arm gently to finish strapping it in place. Stiles sat down next to her as the EMT moved away, and Allison leaned against him heavily, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Scott’s coming,” Stiles said. “Maybe also Derek. Probably not. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m gonna do when they get here. When he gets here.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Allison said. “I bet Derek drives twice the speed limit.”

Stiles was grateful he didn’t take her up on that bet a half an hour later when Derek’s Camaro pulled to a stop between a couple of police cars. He helped Allison out of the ambulance, patient with her grumbling and letting her squeeze the crap out of his shoulder when it turned out she actually did need the help. By the time they’d both landed safely on the ground, Scott and Derek had reached them. Both of them were covered in streaks of dirt and sweat, and there were very obvious claw marks ripped across the side of Derek’s stained tank.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Stiles asked, looking first at Scott, then Derek. “He’s super strong and he has some kind of telekinesis.”

“Telekinesis,” Derek repeated skeptically.

“Yes,” Stiles said, getting a little distracted from his determination. “As in he threw things at us with his mind.”

“I know what it means,” Derek huffed, crossing his arms. “What are you planning to do with him?”

“He says his power comes from the amulet, so hopefully get that off of him,” Stiles said. “Then send that to the lab and him to prison.”

Some of the tension left Derek’s shoulders, and Stiles was grateful that they weren’t trying to catch a mutant they’d have to send off for testing or containment or whatever.

“Is she planning to help?” Derek asked, gesturing to Allison.

“Yes,” Allison said at the same time as Stiles said, “No.”

“Oh!” Scott said. “Derek, you told me werewolves can, like, absorb people’s pain, right?”

“Yeah,” Derek said, a little reluctantly.

When he didn’t move closer to Allison, Scott huffed and then stepped up to Allison himself, his hand hovering above her arm.

“What do I do?” he asked expectantly.

“Just place your hand on her arm and imagine taking the pain away from her and into yourself,” Derek said.

Scott gently placed his fingertips and then his full hand on Allison’s arm, causing her to wince slightly. He screwed his eyes up tight, his mouth pinched as he concentrated, and after a second what looked like black ink began to travel from his fingertips up his hand and then his arm.

“Wow,” Allison said, swaying a little, and Stiles tightened his grasp on her.

“I did it?” Scott asked, opening his eyes, and when he saw his arm a huge smile spread across his face.

“That doesn’t hurt you?” Allison asked. “You’re not feeling the pain instead of me?”

“Nope!” Scott said, turning to grin and Derek, who had his arms crossed again and didn’t look particularly impressed.

“I still don’t think you should come in,” Stiles said, and Allison gave him exactly the look he knew she would.

“I can’t use my arm still but it doesn’t hurt at all anymore,” she said in her most reasonable voice. It was the one she used when she was at her most unreasonable. “With four people we should be able to distract him enough that our weapons will make a difference. You know I can shoot one-handed.”

Stiles sighed and went to grab their gear.

The Jackal was still tearing apart the third museum when they headed inside. As soon as they made it through the front door, Derek and Scott each tensed and dropped into a slight crouch, turning to face the same direction.

“He’s throwing stuff around,” Scott said. “Upstairs to the right.”

Allison, with her left arm bound to her torso and her crossbow steady in her right hand, headed for the stairs. Stiles rushed after her, relieved when the werewolves overtook them. As they made it to the top of the stairs, Stiles heard something loudly thump to the ground, and then nothing else. Derek paused, putting out a hand so that Scott would too.

“He heard us,” Derek said, and then he ran ahead, Scott at his heels.

Stiles made it into the room just in time to see Scott lunge at the Jackal, tackling him into a roll. Scott was throw into the air, but he landed on his feet and immediately charged the Jackal again. It was a massive improvement from the first time Stiles had seen him practice against Derek, but the Jackal still tossed Scott to the floor again and then pinned him with one hand.

“Interesting,” the Jackal said, peering down his arm at Scott’s wolfed-out form.

While he was distracted, Allison aimed her crossbow at his head and fired several times in quick succession. Four darts hit the Jackal before he managed to move out of the way, and the shock and combined electric force was enough for Scott to get free. As he stumbled back, the Jackal waved an arm and sent a huge sword flying through the air toward them. Stiles’s instinct was to dive toward Allison, to shove her out of the way. But before he could react, Derek grabbed him by the arm and tugged him in the opposite direction, sending the sword flying through the new space between Stiles and Allison.

Stiles experienced what he could unfortunately only think to describe as a hot flash in response to Derek’s hand on his arm, his shoulder knocking into Derek’s chest as they steadied themselves. Derek had already distracted Stiles into disaster once that day, and Stiles couldn’t let it happen again.

“See?” Stiles said, pulling his arm free from Derek’s grasp and taking a few steps away from him. “Telekinesis.”

“Not exactly,” the Jackal said, lifting both arms toward a large display case. “I’m more of an elemental. Control over metals. Like silver.”

Derek gasped a quiet but harsh breath as the Jackal drew his arms toward them, causing the many small, shiny trinkets in the display case to rise into the air. They came together, sticking to each other where they touched in one big, lumpy, mostly silver wall made up of tea kettles and brooches and serving platters. Without thinking, Stiles grabbed Derek’s wrist and pulled, trying to move Derek out of the way. The blob came toward them and then curled up to swallow them, knocking their feet out from under them, sending them tumbling together in a heap. It closed up into an uneven, knobby sphere resting on the ground. 

It was mostly dark, with cracks showing between trinkets, and if he moved too quickly in any direction Stiles thought the thing could probably roll like a giant hamster wheel. He couldn’t stand up, but there was more than enough space in there for him to detangle himself from Derek, who was breathing harshly. As Stiles pulled back, his knee bumped Derek’s arm into the side of their cage, and Derek hissed in pain.

“Oh,” Stiles said, “oh, shit, is the silver thing a  _ thing _ ?”

In the partial light, he could see Derek’s face turned away, twisted in pain, and he could just barely see Derek’s mostly uncovered shoulders, his exposed arms.

“Okay, here,” Stiles said, and then he pulled off his uniform gloves and shoved them at Derek, pushing them against his shoulder until he reached up to accept them.

Derek didn’t move to put them on or anything, so Stiles sighed, and then he maneuvered himself so that he had a little more room. He took off his black long-sleeved shirt, thankful that he’d left a thin t-shirt on underneath. Once that was off, he held it out to Derek too, who stared down at it.

“Put them on,” Stiles said.

“Your shirt isn’t going to fit me,” Derek said.

Stiles rolled his eyes and threw the shirt at Derek so it landed in his arms. He couldn’t read Derek’s expression, mostly shadowed, but there was a long pause before Derek did as he said, moving carefully to avoid bumping his arms again. Stiles pushed against the wall of the globe they were trapped in. Nothing budged. He wasn’t sure how exactly the trinkets were stuck together or what would make them separate. He could hear Allison and Scott still fighting with the Jackal outside, until suddenly they weren’t anymore.

“Stiles?” Allison yelled from right outside the orb, but there were lots of little holes in the thing, so her voice was loud, and Stiles and Derek both jumped.

“Yeah,” Stiles called at a more reasonable volume. “We’re okay, aside from the whole silver-is-bad-for-werewolves thing, but we’ve got it covered. Uh, him covered.”

“Okay,” Allison said. “The Jackal headed to the last museum. Will you be okay here if we go after him?”

“Will you?” Stiles asked quickly. “That doesn’t sound like a good idea. He knows he can hurt Scott with silver and you’re down an arm.”

Allison didn’t answer. Stiles turned so that he was more fully facing where her voice was coming from, where he could see her shadow coming through the cracks.

“Hey,” he said. “You know we’re not the first ones who weren’t able to stop him. And this isn’t the first time we’ve let a bad guy go.”

“Okay,” Allison said eventually. “Alright. I’m going to call Danny and give him another update. And ask if he has any advice on how to get you out of there.”

“What should I do?” Scott asked. “Since I can’t touch it to try to break you out.”

“Go with Allison,” Derek said after a pause.

As Scott and Allison walked away, Stiles sighed and sat back against the wall of the orb. His weight made the entire thing tilt in that direction, and as he scrambled to sit back up it shifted uncertainly back and forth. Derek had caught himself against the floor with his gloved hands. He held them up to inspect his palms and, seemingly satisfied, he reached up to begin pushing and pulling at the embedded objects. Stiles figured if Derek couldn’t budge any, he didn’t stand a chance, but he couldn’t sit there doing nothing, so he felt around for a weak point.

“Scott’s improved a lot,” Stiles said after a couple of minutes of quiet.

Derek hummed a noise that Stiles took as an affirmation. If Derek strongly disagreed he’d probably say so.

“You think he’ll do better at the next lacrosse game?” Stiles asked after another long pause.

Derek made another distracted, disinterested sound, then a grunt of frustration when he failed to pull a teacup out of the wall of stuff. Stiles, his fingers tangled up in some kind of chainmail, glared over at Derek.

“So you don’t smell like you’ve been sleeping in your car,” Stiles said, “but Scott is certain there’s no running water at your house, so like, what’s the deal?”

Stiles thought Derek was just going to ignore him again, but then Derek rolled his eyes.

“I got an apartment,” he said, and then the teacup handle he was holding snapped off.

“An apartment?” Stiles asked. “Like a normal person?”

For some reason, he was disappointed, frowning at Derek as he gripped the teacup and broke off another chunk. The parts that were touching other objects remained intact, but the rest seemed to maintain its original state of being. Derek began to look, presumably, for a bigger object he could more fully break through, so Stiles did the same.

“Is it that shocking?” Derek asked eventually.

Stiles turned to look over his shoulder at Derek, but he couldn’t see his face at all.

“I don’t know,” Stiles said, a little self-conscious. “I never really know what to expect from you. You’re confusing.”

Derek huffed and pulled half a goblet out of the wall, possibly out of frustration rather than productivity.

“You make really specific guesses for someone who doesn’t know what to expect,” Derek said. “ _ You’re _ confusing.”

“I’m confusing?” Stiles asked, trying and failing to break another teacup into pieces.

“You gave me your shirt,” Derek said, turning to look at him.

“Uh, yeah, so you wouldn’t be burnt up?” Stiles said. 

He found a pretty big serving tray up above his head and focused his attention on poking at it. 

“You keep acting like helping a werewolf is normal,” Derek said.

“I would help you whether you were a werewolf or an alien or just a regular dude,” Stiles said slowly, turning away from the serving tray.

“I can hear that you’re not lying when you say that, but I’m not just a regular - ” Derek broke off with a frustrated sigh. “You’re only offering to help me find my sister and figure out who turned Scott because you need to keep an eye on the dangerous werewolves in your town.”

Stiles looked at him for a long moment.

“That’s not true,” he said. “Derek, I don’t care that you’re a werewolf. Dude, as long as you’re not eating people, I don’t give a shit.”

Derek frowned at him like he couldn’t comprehend the words Stiles was saying, so Stiles turned back to the serving tray and tapped on it a few times.

“Why did you even come to help us?” he asked. “If you don’t trust agents. Here, come punch this.”

He gestured toward the serving tray and then shifted toward Derek. The whole globe rolled again, but Derek reached out and grabbed Stiles’s shoulder, and slowly they were able to inch past one another so that Derek was closer to the tray. He kept his face turned toward it as he spoke again.

“I couldn’t let Scott come and get hurt,” he said. “He’s my responsibility now.”

Stiles could have kept pushing him. He could have asked why Derek told him about the third werewolf. But he got the feeling that Derek didn’t have the answer, that Derek kept needing to remind  _ himself _ not to trust them. A part of Derek still wasn’t entirely able to shut Stiles and Allison and Danny out.

“What made you feel like this about agents?” Stiles asked.

Derek punched through the serving tray, reaching up to break off the smaller pieces left behind. The hole he ended up with was definitely not big enough for either of them to fit through, but it let in a lot of light. He began to break apart the smaller objects nearby, though there remained a framework of the edges where they were fused together.

“Why does it matter?” Derek asked eventually. “You don’t trust me either.”

“Dude, I don’t get why you’re doing what you’re doing,” Stiles said, “but what you’re doing is looking out for Scott and even Kira, and now you’re helping me and Allison even though you keep claiming to hate us. You might be a grump and maybe I don’t exactly trust you yet, but I’m not, like, opposed to the concept. Or to helping you not burn your skin off. And you clearly aren’t opposed to preventing me from getting impaled with a sword, so.”

Derek, of course, didn’t say anything, and instead kept yanking teapot shards out of the ceiling. He pulled a little too aggressively and a chunk shattered into a bunch of tiny pieces. He cursed loudly as they rained down on his head. He ducked, but it didn’t do much, and Stiles reached out to grab at his arms as best as he could without rocking the entire sphere.

“I have gloves on,” Derek said, trying to pull his arm away, and Stiles smacked his shoulder.

“Turn around and just let me do it so you don’t rub them in,” Stiles said, and Derek did, slowly, his eyes squinted shut so silver couldn’t get into them. “Okay, don’t kill me. Try not to move.”

Holding his breath, Stiles reached out and used his fingertips to brush tiny pieces of silver off of Derek’s cheeks and forehead and the bridge of his nose as quickly as possible, both because they were probably hurting him and because he felt super, super weird about the entire situation. There were tiny pink spots wherever a piece had landed, but they were healing even as Stiles moved onto the next. He wiped chunks of silver off the shoulder of his shirt - his own shirt, on Derek - and the side of his neck and then out of his hair, too, and the whole time Derek didn’t seem to breathe either.

“Okay,” Stiles said. “Did I miss any?”

“No,” Derek said, opening his eyes.

His face was really close to Stiles’s face.

“Uh,” Stiles said.

And then Allison and Scott came back into the room and Stiles was both relieved and furious. He looked away from Derek and toward the sound of their footsteps.

“Stiles?” Allison called, and then Scott poked his head precariously into the opening Derek had created.

“Hey, guys, are you okay?” he said.

“Do you have a way to get us out of here yet?” Derek asked.

“What happened with the Jackal?” Stiles interrupted as Allison appeared next to Scott.

“He found what he was looking for and left,” she said, frowning. “But Danny did have a way to get you out of there. You know those pocket knives he made us?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, pulling his out of his pocket as Allison did the same.

“Okay, so this blade here is essentially a jeweler’s saw,” Allison said, popping one of them out.

“What? Which one?” Stiles asked.

There were too many blades on the thing to keep track of, but eventually he managed to open the same one Allison had.

“This can cut silver?” he asked skeptically.

He handed the knife to Derek, who was closer, and Derek began to saw at the pieces near the hole he hadn’t been able to break through. Allison started to cut one-handed from the outside.

“No, come on,” Stiles said, reaching over Derek’s shoulder for her pocket knife.

Carefully, he and Derek shifted their positions so that they were both able to reach, if awkwardly and uncomfortably, to cut at their opening until it was wide enough that it looked like Derek’s shoulders could get through.

“We have to roll it,” Derek said.

“Like a hamster wheel,” Stiles agreed grimly.

It took a couple of minutes, but they shifted the orb forward until Stiles could slither horribly out onto his stomach, and then he was able to hold the thing in place and keep it steady for Derek to crawl out more smoothly. When Derek stood up, Stiles noticed that he was wearing Stiles’s shirt backwards. Derek caught him looking and, bizarrely, his cheeks turned a very faint pink.

“Oh, right, here,” he said gruffly, before pulling off the gloves and tossing them to Stiles.

He removed the shirt, too, and as Stiles accepted it he wondered how stretched out the shoulders would be, and if it was unwearable now. He absolutely did not give into his brief and horrifying desire to find out if the shirt now smelled like Derek, and hoped would continue to resist it for the rest of time.

“Thanks,” Stiles said awkwardly, and Derek crossed his arms and looked down at the floor.

“Thanks for… you know, helping me with the silver,” he said.

“Oh,” Stiles said. “Yeah. Thanks for helping us… not catch the Jackal.”

He looked away from Derek to see Scott and Allison watching them. Allison looked deeply amused, and Scott looked pleased.

“You too, Scott,” Stiles added quickly. “Okay, time to leave, probably.”

-

Danny was waiting on the front steps of Allison’s house when Stiles pulled into the driveway. They’d stopped by the hospital to get Allison officially checked out and on actual painkillers. They’d also grabbed some fast food and scarfed it down on the road, and were both exhausted even though it was just about dinnertime. 

“Oh my god, do we have to debrief?” Allison asked as she slid out of the car. 

The painkillers she’d been given were just strong enough to make her very tired and a little loopy. Stiles met her around the front of his car and put an arm around her to keep her steady as they went into the house and up to her room.

“We can put that part off,” Danny said, “but you have to tell me where Stiles’s shirt went.”

Stiles was wearing the t-shirt he’d had on underneath his uniform, but he still felt exposed as Allison laughed. The three of them piled onto Allison’s bed, and she curled up with her head in Stiles’s lap and her feet in Danny’s.

“Okay, first of all, silver is bad for werewolves, so jot that down,” Allison said, gesturing expansively the way she did when she got drunk, not that that happened often. “Second of all, Derek and Stiles got trapped in a big ball of silver so Stiles gave him his clothes.”

Danny grabbed both of Allison’s ankles and looked at her very seriously.

“Allison, are you sure you don’t want to debrief? Because I need to know everything,” he said.

“There’s nothing to know,” Stiles said, and Allison laughed again. “Okay, fine, but I don’t know what there is to know yet.”

“Derek thanked you,” Allison said, smacking Stiles on the chest with the back of her hand. “That’s basically a declaration of love from him, probably.”

Danny smiled a full, dimpled smile, looking between Allison as she laughed and Stiles as he blushed furiously.

“Okay,” Danny said, “Stiles, what’s the actual deal?”

Stiles slumped back against the pillows, careful not to jostle Allison as he moved. He thought for a moment before he spoke, really letting himself think what he’d been trying not to think.

“He’s kind of a dick, right?” he said. “He pisses me off so much. And he’s, I mean, you’ve seen him. So I figured it was just - you know, a hate crush that’d go away once I got it into my head that he thinks I’m evil and annoying or whatever.”

“But,” Danny prompted, and Stiles sighed.

“He helped us today, and he let me help him, and he wore my shirt, and look at him, and he has an apartment like a normal person, and he never actually called me annoying once today. Wait, technically he did but I think he was teasing me.”

Stiles covered his face with both hands.

“That’s not a hate crush,” Danny said helpfully, and Stiles would have kicked him if his leg was free.

“You got thanked by Derek Hale,” Allison said, and then she started laughing again.

“Thanked by Derek Hale for what?” Kate asked from the doorway.

Her hair was tousled, her face was streaked with dirt, and there were rips in her bodysuit. Stiles wanted to ask how she knew who Derek was, but Allison spoke first, though she didn’t sit up.

“Where were you?” she asked. “Why didn’t you answer any of your calls?”

“I was already on a mission,” Kate said easily. It was pretty much impossible to tell when she was lying, but the way she looked seemed to support what she said. “I was throwing down with Duff Killigan.”

“I didn’t get any reports about him,” Danny said, picking up his phone to double check.

“Oh, I’ve got my sources,” Kate said, brushing her hair back. “He was in the area and I went to take a look. No big.”

Stiles wanted to ask why Kate had gone after him when he wasn’t actively planning an attack, but then Allison struggled to sit up with her one good arm.

“It kind of is big,” Allison said. “The Jackal got what he was looking for and he got away.”

Kate frowned, focusing on Allison. As she spotted Allison’s bandaged arm, she shifted out of her slump against the door, coming over to the foot of the bed.

“And you got hurt,” Kate said darkly. “Oh, kiddo, don’t worry. The next time the Jackal shows his face I’m gonna make him regret it.”

“How?” Allison asked.

“I’ve got tricks up my sleeve,” Kate said with a smirk, and Stiles didn’t doubt her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The third werewolf is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this there's one chapter left and then the epilogue, both of which I'll be posting at the same time.
> 
> (Also, this failed to post first time around so bear with me if it somehow posts twice now.)

Stiles wasn’t allowed to privately freak out, in the comfort of his own bed with the lights off and a pillow over his head, about his not-a-hate-crush on Derek Hale like he wanted to. Instead, after a week of Allison and Danny teasing Stiles, Scott fortuitously invited him to watch another practice in neutral territory. Allison saw the text on his phone and told Danny, who arrived outside of Stiles’s house morning of with coffee and donuts from the good cafe all the way on the other side of town.

“I hate you,” Stiles said as they pulled into a parking spot on the edge of the preserve.

“I heard you the first twelve times,” Danny said, getting out of the car. “You’ve got sprinkles on your nose.”

Stiles grumbled and wiped his nose aggressively with the back of his hand. He brought the box of donuts with him as he got out. Danny passed one of the trays of coffee off to Allison, and Stiles was trying not to wonder if he’d just gotten everyone the same thing and brought add-ins or if he’d texted around for people’s orders.

“You know Derek is going to be weird about this,” Stiles said, gesturing to the coffee with the donut box.

“What isn’t he weird about?” Danny replied easily. “Also, he can probably hear us from here, but you can keep worrying out loud if you want to.”

Stiles huffed and follow him into the woods. Allison, of course, was able to shoot him smug looks while traipsing through the woods, one arm in a shoulder immobilizer and the other holding one of the coffee trays, absolutely no loss of balance.

Danny used his phone to track Kira’s, and it wasn’t long before they started to hear the sounds of someone, presumably Scott, crashing into trees, as well as general grunting and growling. Stiles took a moment to hope that shirts were involved and intact before they arrived on the scene. Kira was sitting on a tree stump, focused on her phone, but she looked up and waved when she heard them. 

“Hey, guys,” she said. “There’s room for someone to sit here with me. I vote Allison.”

Allison smiled and sat down next to Kira, handing her a coffee. The remaining coffees and the box of donuts were placed on the other tree stump, so Stiles leaned up against a nearby tree with Danny. Derek and Scott, rolling around in the dirt, did have shirts on, though neither looked like it would hold up much longer.

“Mud wrestling is an interesting training tactic,” Danny said, and Derek glared up at him from under Scott’s armpit.

Desperate to avoid any visuals based on that comment, Stiles tried to change the subject, but he couldn’t think of anything, his mouth hanging open stupidly for a moment.

“Are you okay, Stiles?” Kira asked as Scott managed to flip Derek over his shoulder and onto his back near Stiles’s feet. “You look… kinda funny.”

Derek rolled over into a crouch, the back of his shirt lifting up to reveal the skin above his jeans. Danny was definitely looking too, and Stiles wanted to die.

“Stiles always looks funny,” Danny said, because he was both evil and a savior, and because Stiles’s mouth was still open.

He closed it and swallowed. Derek tackled Scott and they rolled over a couple of times, coming to a stop with Derek pinning Scott to the ground. Derek wiped his forehead with his forearm and then looked up directly at Stiles, a look on his face that Stiles couldn’t place.

“You’re quiet,” Derek said, his tone almost accusatory.

“Sorry,” Stiles said, startled into running his mouth. “I know how everyone prefers it when I talk nonstop about a subject they don’t care about. I’ll get right on it.”

Derek’s expression cleared and he shifted his focus back to Scott, so Stiles started to talk about the English essay they were all working on and tried not to think about what the expression could have meant. Practice went on like that for a little longer before Scott tumbled to a stop on the ground and didn’t get up.

“I need a break,” he said as Derek advanced on him. “And donuts.”

“Fine,” Derek said, holding out a hand and helping Scott to his feet.

Stiles, of course, was in the middle of retrieving another donut and a napkin, and he briefly wondered if Scott had timed it on purpose before shoving the idea away. Scott smiled widely at him as he grabbed his coffee and picked out a strawberry donut with sprinkles, which was Stiles’s favorite kind.

“Thanks for bringing these,” Scott said.

“Oh, it was Danny’s idea,” Stiles said with a shrug, just barely remembering not to refer to it as bribery, because then Scott would want to know why Danny had bribed Stiles to come watch practice.

“Cool,” Scott said, and he turned to go thank Danny too.

Right as Stiles took a bite, Derek came over to grab the last coffee and look contemplatively down into the box of donuts. Stiles swallowed and wiped at his face with a napkin and took a sip of coffee and cleared his throat.

“Wondering if they’re poisoned?” he asked as casually as possible.

Derek shot him an odd look.

“You know,” Stiles said, “because we’re agents and you’re werewolves and we brought you food. Gotta be poisoned, right?”

Derek let out a quiet, thoughtful noise that made Stiles feel funny.

“I was just thinking that I haven’t had one of these in a long time,” Derek said slowly. “But you’re right, I probably should be worrying about your motives or something.”

He frowned down at the donuts, like he was disappointed in them. Stiles was torn between disbelief at himself for having a crush on someone so absurdly tragic and despair about Derek’s horrible life.

“Oh my god, just eat a donut,” Stiles blurted after a long, awkward moment, and then he walked away, his face burning.

When Stiles finally made himself look back over at Derek, it was just in time to see him sitting on a tree stump, eating the last bite of a chocolate donut, that contemplative expression back on his face. So tragic.

Practice picked up again a few minutes after that, Stiles and Danny leaning against their tree again, Scott and Derek rolling around in the dirt again. After a while, Derek abruptly stood up and stared out into the woods, his entire body stiff with tension. Scott turned in the same direction, but he seemed confused rather than… scared, maybe.

“That can’t be right,” Derek said to himself, and weirdly, he almost sounded hopeful.

He squatted down close to the ground, though, his fangs and muttonchops emerging as quick footsteps came close enough that even the humans could hear them. A few moments later, a man ran into the clearing at an inhuman speed, which gave Stiles a horrifying flashback of vampire baseball set to Muse.

“There you are,” the man said, smiling and opening his arms to Derek.

Derek shifted suddenly from his defensive position and into an unstable crouch. He pressed his fists into the ground and lowered his head to his chest, letting out a huge breath.

“You’re alive,” he said.

“Yes,” the man said, but he continued urgently, “Derek, listen - ”

“You’re alive,” Derek repeated, standing up suddenly. Stiles couldn’t see the expression on his face and was kind of relieved by that. “How are you alive? How are you a werewolf now?”

“Who are you?” Scott asked. “Why did you follow me?”

“All in time,” the man, glancing at Scott. “I’m Peter, Derek’s uncle. I need you both to listen to me, because we’re in danger. Kate Argent is back in town, and we need to stop her before she can continue to do what she did to the rest of our family.”

A bunch of things happened at the same time. Stiles felt immediately, physically wrong, panic and guilt clawing at one another in his stomach. Allison stood up from her tree stump and took a step toward Derek and Peter, her face scarily blank. And Derek took a step back, turning just enough that Stiles could see the horrible expression on his face, the terror and pain and anger.

“What do you mean?” Allison asked, quiet and deadly serious. “What did Kate do?”

Derek turned to look at Allison, confused, and Peter turned to her as well, his worried expression shifting to something darker as he noticed her for the first time. He looked over at Danny and Stiles, and then gestured toward the three of them, lingering with his finger aimed at Allison.

“Derek, don’t you know who this girl is?” he asked Derek. “She’s an Argent. She and the boy were trained by Kate.”

Derek slowly, slowly turned from Allison to Stiles, and Stiles could only hope that his own expression thoroughly conveyed his shock and horror.

“It’s true,” Stiles said quickly, holding his hands out. “Kate trained us. Kate’s her aunt. But we never - we don’t know what he’s talking about, and whatever it is, we’ve never done anything like that.”

Peter took a step toward Stiles, who flinched back so that he was up against the tree again, but Derek put a hand out without turning to look at Peter. Peter stopped, but his jaw was clenched so tightly that Stiles was surprised his eyes weren’t glowing.

“We kept you and Kate away from one another,” Allison said calmly. “We promised not to tell anyone about you, and we thought Kate might send you to a lab if she knew about you. If we suspected she might do something - something worse, we would have told you there was a threat.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Peter said, his tone calculating.

“We thought you wouldn’t let us help you if you knew about her,” Stiles said, a little desperate.

“You were right,” Derek said quietly. “I should never have - ”

He was looking at the ground. He wasn’t looking at Stiles anymore.

“What did she do to you?” Stiles asked. “What did she do to your family?”

Derek looked up at Stiles quickly as he asked that first question, a haunted expression crossing his face, but it shuttered as Stiles continued.

“I don’t know exactly what she did to them,” Derek said. “That’s always been true. But I know it was her. I couldn’t tell anyone about her without putting myself and Laura in more danger.”

He turned back to Peter, frowning.

“Peter, how - how are you - ”

Danny’s work phone rang suddenly, the one that people called to notify Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable that their help was needed. The tension grew as everyone watched him take the call, particularly since the half of the group that could hear the other end of the conversation wasn’t the half it affected. After a minute, Danny hung up.

“Right,” he said. “Dr. Finstock has been spotted heading up into a mountain like a half an hour away with mining gear. So. We gotta go.”

“Great,” Stiles said, trying and failing to make eye contact with Derek, who was staring at the ground again.

“We’ll talk about this more later,” Allison said to the group at large, calm and authoritative without being pushy, and Stiles hated himself for a moment for all the ways he wasn’t like her.

-

“Are you sure you’re good to fight?” Stiles asked for what felt like the hundredth time as the helicopter neared the drop-off point.

“I’m sure,” Allison said. “It’s annoying that we have to get dropped off further than we would normally because I can’t get down the ladder with one arm, but we agreed that as long as we don’t take on anyone super powerful or unpredictable, I can handle myself. And this is Dr. Finstock and Shego. They’re not really going to  _ hurt _ me.”

Stiles was honestly not sure if she meant that they weren’t capable or that if it came down to it, they’d choose not to, but either way she was probably right.

They didn’t have a ton of information to go off of, but Danny had locked down the exact location where Dr. Finstock and Shego had been spotted, found the nearby cave they were likely headed for, and was researching why they might be excavating. Plus, they didn’t seem to have any henchmen with them, so as to avoid drawing attention to themselves, which they failed at anyway, possibly because of their collective odd coloring, and also all of the mining equipment.

It wasn’t a super far hike from the drop-off point to the cave, and when they got there, Dr. Finstock was hovering outside its mouth yelling in at Shego. Half the equipment was still outside in various states of assembly. 

“Maybe this’ll be quick,” Stiles said.

“Maybe we’ll put them in prison and they’ll stay there,” Allison said.

“Ha,” Stiles said, and then Dr. Finstock noticed them.

“No, no, no,” he yelled, “how do you always, this isn’t, come on! Shego!”

“What?” Shego called, her voice echoing.

Allison sighed and strode past Dr. Finstock and into the cave, so Stiles followed. Shego was adorably wearing a miner’s hat with the headlight turned on and she already had streaks of dust and dirt across her cheeks. She looked incredibly frustrated with the equipment spread out around her, and when she looked up and saw them there, a look of honest relief crossed her face.

“Oh, good,” she said. “I was not in the mood for this kind of manual labor. This is what we hire henchmen for.”

“Where are the henchmen?” Allison asked.

“Oh, they don’t have a ‘delicate enough touch,’” Shego drawled. “Like he’s ever seen me be delicate.”

“What are you even looking for?” Stiles asked.

“We got an anonymous tip that the Silver Cutlass is hidden in this specific cave,” Shego said, every syllable dripping with disdain.

“The Silver Cutlass,” Stiles said. “The alleged magic sword wielded by Blackeye Brown the pirate. In a cave in suburban California.”

Shego shrugged expansively, and her eyelid twitched.

“The boss said we couldn’t risk not finding it if it actually is here,” she said through her teeth.

“What is going on in there?” Dr. Finstock called, and then he screeched.

“You don’t seem very happy to see me,” Kate said, because she was standing behind him, a hand woven tightly into his hair.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Allison asked.

“Whoa, you don’t seem happy to see me either,” Kate said, actually looking shocked. “I got word that these two were in the area and thought I’d come help.”

She reached into one of the magical slots of her bodysuit and pulled out, for some reason, a golf ball.

“We don’t need your help,” Allison said. “How did you even know we were here? Are you tracking us?”

Kate opened her mouth to reply, but then Dr. Finstock shifted in her grasp, going to grab for the golf ball. They grappled for a moment, and as the golf ball fell from her hand, Stiles recognized the logo it bore, and he grabbed Allison and Shego’s arms and pulled them backwards as Kate let go.

It was one of Duff Killigan’s mild explosives, comparatively speaking. Still, Stiles was knocked to the ground, and there was a ringing in his ears as he sat up and looked to where the mouth of the cave used to be, because it had caved in, of course.

“Why did she have Duff Killigan’s tech?” Stiles asked, or at least he tried to.

He couldn’t hear himself speaking, but there wasn’t any blood coming out of his ears, so he figured he’d be fine soon. He pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight a few moments before Shego did the same, having lost her miner’s hat. She found Allison before Stiles did, crouching down to help her sit up. Allison accepted the assistance, letting Shego pull her all the way to her feet before she pulled out her phone too.

Allison gave Stiles a thumbs up and a questioning expression, and he returned the gesture, then they both turned to Shego expectantly. After a moment, she shot them a thumbs up too. Stiles walked over to the pile of rocks blocking the exit and began to poke at it, but Shego grabbed him roughly and pulled him back.

“It might collapse and crush us,” she said, which Stiles partly heard and partly lip-read.

“Awesome,” he replied.

He moved away and checked his phone. He wouldn’t have cell service if he was using a regular phone, but this one had, of course, been modified by Danny, so he sent their location to Danny and his dad, plus a text explaining what had happened and a request for a van that was equipped to hold Shego. It was a low blow, maybe, to arrest her when they were all trapped together, but they couldn’t really just let her go either. They all knew she’d probably escape from wherever she was sent pretty quickly, so she’d probably get over it.

As he worked on sending out that information, Allison moved over to where Shego was inspecting the rock pile, so Stiles turned away and inched a little further into the cave, keeping quiet, trying to give them as much privacy as possible while caved in.

“You know what my actual name is but I don’t know yours,” Allison said, facing the rocks rather than Shego.

“Yours is public info,” Shego said. After a moment, though, she continued, “Lydia Martin.”

“You have to be about the same age as me,” Allison said. “How’d you get involved in this so young?”

“Why did you?” Shego - Lydia asked. “Because I wanted to. I finished school very early. Then I started working very early.”

“This isn’t just work,” Allison said.

“Sure it is,” Lydia replied. “Working for Finstock is basically an apprenticeship on the path to my own set-up. I’ll have money, power, pretty much whatever I want.”

“You can choose another path,” Allison said. “This isn’t the only option for someone in your situation.”

“My situation?” Lydia laughed. “Honey, I gave myself these powers on purpose.”

Allison turned to fully face Lydia. In that partial light from their phones, her jaw was set, but her eyebrows were drawn together.

“Villainy isn’t the only way to feel powerful,” she said, and Lydia huffed and rolled her eyes.

“Okay, if we wanna do the psychoanalysis thing, sure, I got into this because I had a tumultuous childhood full of divorce and fighting and I wanted control,” she said. “But good and evil are social constructs. I don’t hurt civilians and I keep Finstock from doing anything unnecessary or absurd.”

She turned to face Allison fully too, her arms crossed.

“I’m a villain if that’s what people want to call me,” she said. “But I’m not evil. I’m ambitious and I make my own rules. I think that’s something you should be able to understand.”

Allison pressed her lips together tightly, but Stiles couldn’t tell, from the corner of his eye, if she was frustrated, or trying not to smile, or both.

“You could use your power and intelligence for good,” Allison said, but she sounded distracted, and then Lydia wrapped a hand in her ponytail and kissed her.

Both of their phones fell to the ground and Stiles was grateful that he could no longer see what was happening, though he could definitely still hear it. He wasn’t sure if he should remind them that he was there or pretend that he wasn’t. Thankfully he didn’t have to choose, because after a few uncomfortable moments his phone beeped with a notification and the kissing noises stopped.

“Oh,” Allison said.

Lydia reached down to pick up their phones, handing Allison hers as well, and when she spoke she sounded fairly put together, but she didn’t look it.

“I hope that’s from someone coming to rescue us,” she said. “Or more likely rescue you and arrest me.”

“You’ll break out again by tomorrow,” Stiles said. “Just don’t hurt anyone when you do it and we won’t come after you til the next thing.”

“You know I won’t do anything they won’t easily recover from,” Lydia replied, and she didn’t sound offended, just mildly inconvenienced. “And I won’t touch your dad, obviously.”

Stiles saluted her, then held up his phone again.

“Okay, Danny sent me a map. There’s supposed to be another outlet nearby - if we head back a little further in this cave there’s another tunnel. And people have used it recently so it should be safe.”

“Okay,” Lydia said, holding up her phone’s flashlight and heading into the dark. “You better not Cask of Amontillado me right when I’ve finally made out with your partner.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Stiles replied, but he hung back because Allison hadn’t moved yet, still looking a little shocked. “You good?”

“Yeah,” Allison said slowly. “Good. And gay. Oh my god, I made out with our arch-nemesis.”

“Well, our arch-nemesis’s sidekick,” Stiles said. “I mean, apprentice.”

“That’s right,” Lydia said, and then Stiles and Allison followed her deeper into the cave.

-

The police van that Stiles’s dad and Danny showed up with had special shackles set up in the back that were supposed to be able to hold Lydia. Stiles doubted that they could hold her if she really wanted to get free, but he also couldn’t exactly tell his dad not to lock her up. There was also only room for two people in the front, so Stiles and Allison wound up sitting on the bench across from her. Once they got settled in, Allison reached over and fixed Lydia’s hair, which had fallen into her face, and Lydia smiled at her.

“Our lives are so weird,” Stiles said.

“And there aren’t even any werewolves here right now,” Allison said.

“Werewolves?” Lydia asked.

“Werewolves?” Stiles’s dad asked from the driver’s seat, because the divider between the front and back parts of the truck was down.

“Uh,” Stiles said.

“We should probably contact them to make sure they’re okay after everything that went down earlier,” Allison said, her voice all business.

“I expect you to explain this later,” the sheriff said, but he recognized Allison’s tone of voice too.

“You call Scott,” Stiles said to Allison. “Danny, you call Kira, and I’ll call Derek.”

“Scott McCall and Kira Yukimura?” Stiles’s dad asked. “Are they werewolves?”

“Scott is,” Stiles said as Derek’s phone kept ringing and ringing. “Also Derek Hale. Who isn’t answering the phone.”

“Neither is Kira,” Danny said.

“Same,” Allison added, and they all hit dial again.

“Derek Hale is a werewolf,” the sheriff said to himself, and Stiles knew he was mentally going over the Hale case files again, wondering what other information he didn’t have, but there wasn’t time for that.

The dread grew in Stiles’s stomach as Derek’s phone reached his voicemail again.

“Maybe I should try to call Kate,” Allison said, staring down at her phone.

“Maybe,” Stiles started, but then his dad swore and hit the brakes, sending the car swerving a little bit.

They were on an empty back road of Beacon Hills, out near the preserve. Stiles stood up from his seat so he could see out the windshield. Peter Hale was standing in the middle of the road, his eyes glowing gold and his face wolfed out, staring right at them.

“I assume that’s a werewolf,” Lydia said.

Stiles got up and opened the back door of the truck, and Peter came around to meet him, his face relaxing into something more human, something desperate.

“There you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking for the three of you - I found you by scent.”

“Super,” Stiles said. “What the hell is going on? No one’s answering their phones. Did Kate do something?”

“Of course she did,” Peter said. “She found us in the woods just a little while ago armed with all kinds of strange technology. She immobilized Derek and your friends with a sticky pink substance, but I managed to hide before she saw me.”

Stiles reached down into his pockets, and Allison did the same.

“Mine is missing,” she said, her voice steely.

“So is mine,” Stiles said. “Did she say where she was taking them or what she was going to do?”

“All she said was that you wouldn’t be able to help them because she’d already taken care of you,” Peter said. “Trapped you somewhere.”

“I  _ knew _ Finstock’s tip about the Silver Cutlass was bullshit,” Lydia muttered.

“Get in,” Allison said. “She tried to take care of us, but we got free and we are going to stop her.”

Peter climbed into the back of the van and Stiles shut the door behind him. Unsubtly Peter sat down next to Lydia and cast a long look at her, her unnaturally pink-tinted skin and her bodysuit and her shackled hands.

“Nice muttonchops,” Lydia said, and Peter looked away from her.

“I tracked all three of their phones,” Danny said, “and they’re all near the Hale house. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the area though.”

“Let me see,” Peter said, and when Danny held up the screen with the map he continued, “Ah. Yes. The tunnels.”

“The tunnels?” Stiles’s dad asked.

“There are tunnels running underground on our property,” Peter said. “Which Kate must know about.”

“What is Kate going to do to them?” Allison asked. “What did she do last time?”

Peter sighed and leaned back against the bench. When he spoke, his tone was calm and detached, like he was telling a story that didn’t affect or involve him personally.

“Four years ago,” Peter began, “Kate was investigating Dr. Harris, who used to teach at Beacon Hills High and is now known as DNAmy. There were reports that she was taking invasive DNA samples from students to use in experiments, so Kate was sent to look into her.”

“Kate sent her to prison,” Allison said. “Four years ago.”

“Before she arrested Harris, Kate got her to talk,” Peter said. “Harris told her about some students whose DNA appeared to be part wolf. Kate watched us for a while, and decided she wanted to eliminate us. She approached Derek, because he was young, and got close to him, flirted with him. He knew she was an agent, and she said she wanted to help his family, to protect him.”

Stiles leaned forward and put his head in his hands. He’d always felt uncomfortable around Kate. She’d always seemed predatory. He’d never quite let himself think about what she might be capable of, guilty of. What he was afraid she could do. And she’d already done some of it, done something to Derek.

“Harris also told Kate that she was inspired by those students’ DNA to create a ray gun that could turn a human into a wolf-human hybrid, and then a wolf-human hybrid into a wolf. Kate stole the weapon from her, and then got her locked up.”

“She’s been using stolen tech for four years and no one’s noticed?” Danny asked, turning around in his seat.

“It was her using the Bondo Ball a few weeks ago,” Allison said hollowly.

Stiles ran a hand over his face and sat back up.

“A ray gun that turns humans into werewolves or regular-ass wolves,” he said. “What kind of  _ Jupiter Ascending _ bullshit… Don’t these people have anything better to do?”

“No, generally speaking,” Lydia said. “And you should be grateful. Your job would be a lot harder if people with good ideas had the resources to make them.”

“I question your definition of ‘good ideas,’” Stiles said, and Allison put a hand on his knee.

“So Kate used DNAmy’s tech on the Hales,” she said. 

“Yes,” Peter said. The lack of emotion in his voice was really starting to disturb Stiles. “Derek and Laura weren’t home, so they never knew what she did to the rest of the family, just that Kate was the one with the information to do it.”

“And how do  _ you _ know all of this?” Lydia asked, her eyes narrowed. “Why aren’t you a wolf now?”

“I was born human,” Peter said, and some bitterness finally began to creep into his voice. “When I was hit with the ray, I turned into a werewolf. Kate didn’t realize - she just shot everyone and left them to tear apart the house and run into the forest. I was the only witness, so I learned what I could about her, and I went to visit Harris in prison. She was more than happy to tell me everything.”

The van came to a stop, and Stiles looked up to see that they were deep in the woods, parked in front of the Hale house. Since he’d seen the police reports and the pictures of its ruined interior, he could vividly imagine a bunch of panicked wolves trampling the furniture, bursting out into the trees. He wondered where they were now, and if they were still together. He wondered, for a moment, what it would be like to be stuck in an inhuman body for four whole years, and then he made himself stop.

He climbed out of the back of the truck and Peter followed, but Allison hesitated.

“I think we should bring Lydia with us,” she said, squaring her shoulders.

“Isn’t her name Shego?” the sheriff asked, and Danny raised his eyebrows significantly at Stiles, but Stiles ignored him.

“Okay,” Stiles said, pointing at Lydia. “Kate’s the blonde lady. Don’t attack anyone else.”

Lydia’s eyes cut to Peter for a long moment.

“I’ll do my best,” she said breezily as Allison released her.

Stiles’s dad walked over to him, leaning in close.

“That a good idea?” he asked quietly, tilting his head toward Lydia.

“Probably,” Stiles said with a shrug, and then he took a deep breath. “Look, you don’t have to - ”

“Stiles,” his dad said, putting a hand on his shoulder, “I’m not gonna leave citizens of my town in danger, even if they are, apparently, werewolves. And you don’t get to ask me not to do something dangerous. I’m the dad and you’re the kid, remember?”

Stiles heaved out a sigh and leaned forward to bounce his forehead off his dad’s shoulder, letting it rest there for a moment.

“Yeah, okay,” Stiles said. “I just didn’t want to drag you into this.”

“I was always in this,” the sheriff said. “This was my case before it was yours. Now let’s go solve it for good, huh?”

Stiles pulled away and nodded.

“Do you know where the entrance to the tunnels is?” Danny asked Peter. “I can track their phones, if not.”

“I can lead you there,” Peter said. “This used to be my home, and it will be again soon.”

A small smile crossed his face as he headed deeper into the woods. It was still late afternoon, but the trees were thick and the lighting was odd, and Stiles felt deeply unsettled.

“I’m assuming you followed Kate back to town,” the sheriff said. He had one hand on his gun and the other on his flashlight, and he was watching Peter out of the corner of his eye as they walked. “So why did she come back now?”

“She wants to finish the job she started, obviously,” Peter said. “She wants to turn Derek, and Scott too, now that she knows about him.”

“Is that what happened to Laura?” Stiles asked.

The mouth of the tunnel was probably hidden under leaves and branches normally, but instead they came upon an open hole in the ground, with steep steps leading down into the darkness. Stiles’s dad turned on his flashlight and led the way. Peter followed immediately after him, which made Stiles nervous, so he entered next.

“Why hasn’t Kate turned Derek and Scott already?” Danny asked as he pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. “She’s been in town for weeks.”

Up ahead, the lighting changed as Stiles’s dad slowly turned a corner. Stiles put out a hand until he could follow along the tunnel wall and make the turn. When Peter spoke again, his voice echoed strangely in the dark, coming from behind Stiles, from behind the rest of the group.

“She doesn’t have the ray gun right now,” Peter said. His voice was still calm, but there was a darker note of satisfaction running through it. “I spent the last four years following Kate around the country, trying to figure out where she housed her stolen tech, and I finally found her vault. And I took the ray gun.”

“You have it,” Stiles said slowly, stopping in his tracks.

When he turned around to look at Peter, his eyes were glowing gold in the dark.

“Keep walking,” Peter said, and then suddenly his glowing eyes were over Danny’s shoulders, and Danny gasped.

The sheriff turned around and pointed his gun at Peter right as Lydia lit up her hands, illuminating Peter and Danny with their orange glow. Peter’s claws were pressed against Danny’s throat.

“I’m faster than you are,” Peter said, baring his pointed teeth. “And your bullets won’t kill me.”

“Let him go and we’ll keep walking,” the sheriff said.

Peter pushed Danny forward, and Stiles grabbed him by the arms as he stumbled, putting himself between Danny and Peter.

“You walk in front,” the sheriff said.

“I don’t think so,” Peter replied, smug. “Now move before I rip your son’s throat out.”

In the faint lighting, Stiles was able to make eye contact with Allison, and he knew they were thinking the same thing: keep him monologuing.

As Stiles’s dad turned away, his gun still in hand, and started walking again, Stiles put a hand to Danny’s back and cleared his throat.

“So,” he said. “Why did you come get us before attacking Kate if you have the ray gun?”

“You know her weaponry better than I do,” Peter said. “And I doubt you’re going to just let Kate walk away from this. That works in my favor. Plus, I wasn’t able to build up the army I planned.”

He growled in frustration, but thankfully his voice came from a few feet away in the dark.

“Why not?” Danny asked.

“I had trouble working the damn thing and they kept turning into wolves instead,” Peter said darkly. “Your friend Scott is the only one who successfully turned into a werewolf.”

“It doesn’t sound like that difficult a concept,” Stiles said. “Shoot once for werewolf, twice for wolf, right?”

“You are so lucky everyone but me is incompetent,” Lydia said under her breath.

“You try shooting someone with a ray gun as they’re running away from you,” Peter huffed. “I shot at them multiple times hoping to hit them at all, and I kept hitting them twice when they stumbled after the first hit.”

“Okay, don’t change up your system or anything,” Danny said.

“Of course,” the sheriff said suddenly. “You turned people who were out in the woods or on the streets alone at night.”

The profile fit for Scott, for Liam and Hayden, probably for the rest of the people in the area who had gone missing.

“If you turned Scott, why did you leave him alone all this time?” Allison asked.

“Oh, Derek found him first, and I didn’t want Derek to know about my plan until it was ready,” Peter said. “I’d gotten Kate back into town but I hadn’t built up a new pack yet. I only revealed myself because I was following Kate and realized she was going to do something today.”

“Kate came back to town because she heard about the wolves spotted in the area,” Allison guessed.

They carefully rounded another corner in the tunnel system, and up ahead was a another hallway that was brightly lit. They turned off their flashlights and headed into the brighter tunnel. Someone nearby let out a moan of pain, and it echoed.

“No, Kate’s not that smart,” Peter scoffed. “But Laura is. She noticed and came back to town even though she didn’t know for sure it was connected to what happened to the rest of the family. So I turned Laura, because I knew Derek would come back to town, and that did catch Kate’s attention.”

“Sure did,” Kate called, her voice echoing down the tunnel.

Peter let out a low growl.

“Keep walking,” he said.

There was a turn not too far down the hall, and as the sheriff rounded the corner he came to an abrupt stop, the rest of them crowding behind him in the opening. Kate stood in the center of the room, her hair and eyes wild, dirt and residue from the pink elastic goo she’d stolen coating her bodysuit. In one hand she held a cattle prod, a regular black and silver one, and in her other was a gun. 

Behind her, Derek and Scott were both shirtless and chained up by their arms, fading burns dotting their torsos. Kira was sitting on the floor, handcuffed to a pipe. Scott and Kira both looked relieved by their arrival, but Derek, his face blank with shock, was staring at Peter as he pushed his way to the front of the group.

“I don’t know which one you are,” Kate said to Peter, “but I know you’re a filthy mongrel who deserves to live as one full time. Give me back my ray gun, or I will hurt you. All of you.”

Her eyes settled on Allison last, and there was a slight shift in her expression, but the stubborn tilt of her chin and the tight grip on her gun meant Stiles believed her.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some bad guys are defeated, but that doesn't mean things actually calm down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i somehow originally pasted the entire text of this chapter in twice! but it's fixed now :|

“Where’s my ray gun?” Kate asked, pointing the gun at Peter. “I know you have it.”

Allison stepped to the side and placed herself directly in front of Peter.

“Tell me why you’re doing this,” she said steadily, and Kate didn’t lower the gun.

“Don’t you side with that beast over me,” Kate snarled.

“I’m not. I just want to understand.”

Allison’s voice cracked, and Stiles couldn’t see her face, but he was pretty sure that she was turning on the waterworks on purpose, or at least choosing not to keep them at bay. Kate didn’t lower the gun, but her expression shifted.

“You know what happened to your grandpa,” Kate said. “An abomination killed him.”

“An irresponsible experiment got loose and was hurting people, and he was trying to contain it,” Allison corrected. “You can’t just go after anyone you think might be dangerous and punish them however you want to.”

“Isn’t he dangerous?” Kate asked, gesturing to Peter with the gun. “Turning whoever he wants into monsters like him? Speaking of, Derek doesn’t seem too happy about what you did to his sister.”

Derek was watching the conversation with a dull, resigned expression on his face. Stiles couldn’t imagine the series of emotions Derek must have experienced since first encountering Peter, and he couldn’t imagine having anything left to give at that point. He wanted to offer Derek something, somehow, but Derek wasn’t looking at him.

“That won’t stop him from helping me take you down,” Peter said, not even looking at Derek.

“Whatever you plan to do to me would just prove me right,” Kate said. “They’d take you all away and lock you up forever, testing you and torturing you. You deserve it.”

“Unless,” Peter said. He stepped out from behind Allison and pulled a small, purple gun-shaped device from his pocket. “Unless I make you like me.”

“I’d kill myself before I’d live like you,” Kate said, going so pale that her lips turned chalky.

“I know,” Peter replied, smiling.

For a long moment, they all stood still and tense, as Kate pointed her gun at Peter and Peter pointed his ray gun at Kate. Then, suddenly, Peter aimed the device at Kira and fired. A purple ray of light shot her in the side and she yelped, but nothing happened.

In one swift movement, Lydia lit up one of her hands and punched Peter in the side of the head, and Allison grabbed the device out of his hand. They both backed away from Peter quickly, raising their hands so that Kate could see they weren’t about to do anything else. Peter’s face had transformed when he righted himself.

“NO!” he roared. “Why didn’t that work? You were supposed to transform and attack her!”

Kira stared up at him, her eyes wide.

“I don’t feel any different,” she said.

Distracted, Kate turned to look at Kira more fully, lowering her weapons.

“But you are different,” Kate said thoughtfully. “You must be. It wouldn’t work if you don’t have fully human DNA.”

“If I don’t _what_?” Kira asked.

Peter let out another roar and began to move toward Kate. As she turned back around to face him, raising her gun again, Stiles noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Lydia pulled the ray gun gently out of Allison’s hand. Before Peter reached Kate, before Kate fired her gun, Lydia aimed the ray gun at Peter and fired once, and then before anyone could react she aimed it at Kate and fired twice.

“Whoops,” Lydia said, and then handed the ray gun back to Allison, lighting up her hands and using laser blasts to herd the two wolves out of the room and into the tunnel system.

Allison stared down at the device in her hand. Stiles felt weird that he hadn’t really done anything. He was used to being a sidekick, used to partaking in the minor action instead of the major, but this had been building up for weeks, and wrapped so many mysteries into one. Selfishly, he kind of wanted to have had a bigger role in saving Derek.

“I guess that’s one way to resolve this,” Stiles said. “What do we… do with them now?”

“Send them to a preserve, maybe?” Danny said, going over to a still shell-shocked Kira and beginning to pick the lock of her handcuffs.

The sheriff headed over to Scott, so Stiles got out his pocketknife and walked over to Derek, pulling out the jeweler’s saw and setting to work on the silver chains keeping Derek’s wrists above his head.

“Are you okay?” Stiles asked.

Derek huffed out a quiet, ugly laugh. When Stiles touched Derek’s hand to get a better grip on the chain, it was shaking.

“No,” Derek said.

The chains broke through and Stiles reluctantly moved his hands away from Derek’s as he lowered them, rubbing at one wrist and then the other.

“Do you think we should send them to a preserve?” Stiles asked.

“I don’t care,” Derek said, still not looking at him. “I don’t want to see either of them ever again.”

Scott’s chains came loose and Derek turned to him, so Stiles moved out of the way. As Kira came over too, Derek put a hand on each of their shoulders.

Stiles’s dad poked his head out into the hallway, maybe to see what Lydia was up to with the wolves, and Danny and Allison and Stiles wound up in the middle of the room together, looking at the device in Allison’s hand.

“I think,” Danny said, and then he stopped and looked over his shoulder at the werewolves and Kira.

“What?” Stiles asked, and Danny turned around.

“Derek,” he said. “Sheriff Stilinski. I want to work with this device to see if I can reverse its effects. I might be able to turn the wolves back.”

Derek looked at Danny quietly for a moment. Stiles had seen that look on Derek’s face before, briefly. Derek was trying not to get his hopes up. He was tired, and used to being disappointed, and he might be disappointed again, but there was still hope left somewhere in Derek Hale.

“Okay,” Derek said, and then he looked at Scott. “Do you think you’d be able to turn a werewolf back into a human too?”

“It’s okay if you can’t,” Scott said, smiling at Derek. “I’ve gotten used to it. I’m cool with it now.”

“Do you think that you’ll be able to find your family, now that you know what happened to them?” Allison asked.

“I won’t stop trying,” Derek said, and something in the set of his shoulders was more settled as he continued, “Thank you. For helping us. And for not being like her.”

He looked first to Allison as he spoke, then Danny, and last to Stiles. Stiles felt like he should say something, like he was being handed an opportunity, but before something came to him, his dad reentered the room.

“Alright, who wants to fully explain to me what’s going on?” he asked, clapping his hands together.

Stiles ran a hand over his head and sighed.

“Me, probably,” he said, gesturing to the exit. “Lead the way.”

-

Danny took the ray gun home and set to work. Stiles didn’t ask about it, and Scott didn’t ask about it, and Derek didn’t contact any of them to ask about it. Stiles was the type of anxious where his legs were constantly bouncing, his chest always felt a little tight, and his attention span was even worse than usual. He knew that Danny noticed, so he tried to hide it. He probably failed.

It wasn’t like nothing else was happening, anyway. Kira came up to them at school a few days later, her wrists still raw from the handcuffs, and shoved them all into an empty classroom as the bell signaling the beginning of lunch rang.

“Okay, so I know what I am,” she said as soon as Scott shut the door. “I went home and I asked my parents, because I was thinking about what - what Kate said, and I remembered a lot of cryptic stuff my parents have said, and I think they’ve been waiting for me to figure it out or start noticing changes or whatever, but I just asked them and they told me.”

She paused to breathe, and Stiles exchanged a look with Danny.

“Okay, what are you?” Stiles asked.

“A kitsune,” she said. “A fox spirit. My mom is one too. She’s still explaining to me what it means and how it works, and she’s going to show me how to tap into my powers but - I have them. I’m not human, and I have powers.”

She looked excited and nervous, and Scott was watching her talk with a fond expression on his face.

“Hey,” Stiles said. “Thanks for telling us. You know, instead of making me bully it out of you this time.”

Kira laughed, and Scott ducked his head, smiling.

“We told Derek about Kira,” Scott said. “He offered to help her work on control and fighting and stuff when she starts accessing her strength and healing and, what else is there? Something with electricity?”

At the mention of Derek, Stiles felt some of the lightness drain back out of him. It was probably a good sign that Derek had offered to help Kira, and it was probably a good sign that Scott and Kira were in contact with him in the first place. Derek wasn’t just wallowing in isolation after everything that had happened, or in anticipation of what still might happen.

Danny, too, looked uncomfortable at the mention of Derek, so Stiles clapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, let’s head to lunch before all the fries are gone,” he said, leading the way out of the classroom.

-

A week or so later, at 3am, Danny sent Stiles a text: _i think i did it_?

Stiles was wide awake and immediately replied: _!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

The next morning, he and Allison headed over to Danny’s house. Jackson was lounging on the bed, but that was no longer a surprise. The ray gun was sitting on Danny’s desk, surrounded by tools, but it didn’t look any different. Stiles wasn’t sure why he expected it to.

“So,” he said, shoving Jackson’s legs out of the way and sitting down on Danny’s bed. Allison sat next to him. “What now? Turn them back into werewolves and bring them to science jail?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Allison said, staring down at her hands. “All of the scientists and other people we work with - we know them through Kate and my grandpa. I’ve never really questioned their motives or what they do with the people and creatures and materials we give them.”

Danny let out a thoughtful noise.

“We also kind of inherited the system of passing off sentient science experiments or the people we can’t lock up in normal prisons to other people,” he said. “I’ve been feeling weird about that since I got landed with this one.”

He gestured to Jackson, who sat up and bodily maneuvered Stiles out of the way so he could sit on the edge of the bed too.

“I mean, you kept me and no one’s come knocking on the door to take me away,” Jackson said. “You can just… stop, right?”

“We gotta put another system into place though,” Stiles said. “You’re fine because you’re not really evil, just a dick. But Peter and Kate have already done bad stuff, and they’re really unpredictable, and they’re werewolves now. Regular prison won’t cut it, and if we don’t pass them off, we don’t have anywhere to keep them ourselves.”

Jackson nodded, considering, unfazed by the insult because it was true.

“Maybe we can build somewhere to put them,” Danny said. “We can keep them on the preserve, as wolves, til we figure it out. Lydia would probably help me.”

“Probably,” Allison agreed. “But we can’t just build a cage and leave them alone. Someone needs to guard it still.”

“What if,” Stiles said slowly, “we modify cells at the Beacon County prison? My dad would be the one in charge, and we could handle maintaining the tech we use, and check on them because they’d be nearby, and whatever. It’s not a long-term solution, obviously, but…”

“Okay, so what else can we do long-term?” Allison asked. “Other than investigating all the people we work with now and making better connections that we really know and trust.”

“I was always going to study this stuff in college,” Danny said, and Stiles nodded as he spoke. “Learn more about the stuff I’m already doing so I can do more and do better.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “I mean, I don’t wanna overwhelm myself at college, so that I can keep doing school and work at the same time, but I was thinking about focusing on learning more about the stuff you do that I don’t know as much about. You know, engineering and everything. But now I think I should focus on, like, biology and chemistry too, not just the tech stuff.”

“Right, that’s what I was thinking,” Danny agreed. “I wanted to be able to do all of it myself if it came down to it, but now - I want to choose to do all of it in the first place rather than primarily going to other people.”

“Exactly,” Stiles said. “We could work on our own to figure out how to help sentient experiments or the best way to contain supernatural bad guys or whatever.”

Allison let out a hum of consideration.

“That sounds like a good plan,” she said. “I think I should learn all of this stuff too. I’m not _bad_ at science, but I never felt a need to focus on it because I had so many other people to do it for me, you know?”

Allison sighed and looked over at Stiles.

“Also,” she said, “I’ve also been thinking about dropping the pseudonym.”

Stiles blinked at her.

“What?” he asked, and she shrugged, looking away.

“This stuff with Kate has me thinking,” she said. “I really feel like I need to reclaim and reinvent the Argent legacy or whatever. And reinvent the job itself, you know? It’s bigger than stopping criminals with unique technology, and we need to figure out what it is instead. And this is corny, but I need to figure out who Allison Argent really is, instead of continuing to pretend to be Kim Possible. And also I’m gonna come out.”

She said the last part all in a rush, her chin tucked into her chest.

“Yeah?” Stiles asked, nudging her thigh with his own.

“Yeah,” she said. “I feel like it’s time to be honest about everything. And, like, Kate being secretly terrible has made me feel a lot less guilty about having feelings for someone who’s technically my enemy but is actually a pretty good, if law-breaking, person?”

“Good,” Danny said after a long pause, and Allison let out another heavy breath, leaning her good shoulder against Stiles’s.

She turned to look at him.

“You don’t have to drop your pseudonym just because I am,” she said. “You can do whatever you want. And I’m not gonna do it til after graduation, so you have time to think about it.”

“I will think about it,” Stiles said, leaning his head against hers, and he took a deep breath, overwhelmed with possibilities.

-

They still had to actually test the ray gun before they could give it to Derek, so the next day after school, Stiles’s dad drove the three of them to the animal preserve. The sheriff wanted to supervise in case anything went wrong, and to give a bit more authority to the fact that they were shooting a ray gun at what looked like a normal wolf, and one that they had brought to the preserve themselves in the first place.

When they arrived, an unsettled-looking woman in a lab coat brought them to a room with a large cage. Inside a wolf was lying on its side, presumably sedated. Stiles wasn’t sure if it was Peter or Kate, or, for that matter, how they were even sure this particular wolf was one of the two that used to be human.

Danny stepped up to the cage and pulled the ray gun out of his backpack, aiming it between the bars at the unconscious wolf. He pulled the trigger, and the wolf glowed purple for a moment, and then Kate was lying in its place, still unconscious. After a moment, Danny fiddled with the ray gun and then aimed it at her again, turning her back into a wolf.

“Damn,” Stiles said.

Allison had her right arm crossed tightly over the other, still in its immobilizer. She hadn’t brought Kate up much since everything had happened, outside of their conversation the night before. He put his arm over her shoulders.

“Do you want to bring the ray gun to Derek?” she asked.

“Nah,” Stiles said. “Danny’s the one who altered it. I’m not making this about me.”

“Hey, I just realized something,” Stiles’s dad said, coming up on Allison’s other side. “I thought I saw you flirting with Derek Hale at that lacrosse game a couple of weeks ago. But that was just werewolf business?”

“It was both,” Danny and Allison said simultaneously, and Stiles buried his face in Allison’s hair and groaned.

Thankfully they left it at that, though Stiles was worried his dad might bring it up again after they dropped off Danny and Allison on the way home. It was quiet for a few awkward minutes, but when his dad spoke, Stiles was surprised.

“Keeping Peter and Kate in our own modified jail cells will be complicated,” his dad said, “but I think in the long run this is a good idea.”

“Yeah?” Stiles asked.

“You’re all gonna learn what you need to and make good choices. You care about helping these people. You care about them as individuals. Even the criminals you fight. And I think you’re all smart enough to take your time in figuring out the best solutions. I have a question though.”

“Shoot,” Stiles said, though he was nervous.

“Do you think you’re gonna keep being an agent long-term?” his dad asked. “I mean the kind you are now, the kind Allison is. Do you think you’ll stay in the field as her partner, or switch to something like what Danny does, maybe be in charge of rehabilitation and incarceration?”

Stiles leaned his head against the window, letting the vibrations distract him for a long moment. He’d been up half the night wondering nearly the same things. It was interesting, the possibility of taking on a role similar to his dad’s, but in a very different setting. It was overwhelming.

And it was a big difference from what he was doing now. He hadn’t expected to stop being an agent, or really change the path he was on at all - it had never occurred to him before. But Allison dropping the pseudonym meant Stiles had to make some kind of decision either way, even if that decision was to continue what he was already doing.

“I don’t know,” Stiles said finally.

“That’s fine,” his dad said quickly. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot and I don’t expect you to have an answer now. I was just wondering if you were thinking about it.”

“I’m thinking about a lot of things,” Stiles said, and then he winced, because that came out much more dramatic and teen-angst than he’d meant it to.

His dad huffed out a laugh.

“Well, like I said, you’re smart enough to take your time and make a good decision. And I’m not suggesting this because I don’t think you’re good at what you do now, son. I just think you’d be good at this other thing, too. And you have the freedom to figure out what you like more.”

Stiles leaned his head back against his headrest and closed his eyes.

“Yeah,” Stiles said.

“Okay, I’ll stop putting you on the spot now,” his dad said, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder.

“Thanks, Dad,” Stiles said, and his dad squeezed his shoulder.

Stiles had a lot to worry about still, but he felt comfortable for the rest of the car ride, at least.

-

A few days later, Stiles checked his phone on his way out of class and walked right into an open locker because he had two texts from Derek.

The first said: _I found my family by calling for them in parts of the preserve where I knew they might hide, now that I know to look. They’d gathered up the new wolves Peter made. I turned them all back._

The second said: _Thank you._ _Thank the others for me._

Once Stiles had maneuvered himself to a safer part of the hallway, he ignored the bell that would ring soon, ignored the nerves in his stomach, and texted Derek back before he could second-guess himself.

_that’s amazing!!!!!!!_

_you’re welcome, derek_

He shoved his phone back into his pocket and went to class, clinging to the lightness he felt as much as he could. This case was solved. This door was closed. Things were good and done and he might run into Derek at practice every now and then, but there was no real reason to see him anymore. That meant he wouldn’t have to be nervous around Derek all the time - that was a good thing. It was a win overall, he told himself, and even if he didn’t really believe that last part, he still felt a lot lighter than before.

-

By that night, it was public info that the Hales and all the other missing Beacon Hills residents had returned, and a condensed version of events became public info too. The story was, essentially, that Kate Argent turned to crime to misguidedly avenge her father, using tech she stole from DNAmy to turn all the missing people into wolves. The werewolf part remained a secret, though the Hales and their new pack members might decide to go public later.

Stiles’s dad handled getting every missing citizen who wasn’t a Hale back to their families, after some basic control training, now that they were werewolves and not wolves. His dad handled getting the ray gun back to Danny, so he could try to figure out how to turn werewolves human again. He handled everything that there was left to handle, while Stiles sat at home trying to do his math homework, sat in class as other students whispered about Liam Dunbar’s reappearance, sat in front of the TV as the news speculated about Kate’s turn to crime.

His dad came into his room as he was lying across his bed, a textbook open on his chest and a pencil balanced between his nose and upper lip. Stiles caught them both and moved them out of the way as he sat up.

“So,” his dad said, “now that they’ve had a few days to recover and get used to having opposable thumbs again, and now that the power in their house is back on, the Hales have invited us and Allison and Danny over as a thank you.”

Stiles dropped his pencil and it rolled under the bed.

“Oh,” he said, and his voice cracked.

His dad made a face that was somewhere between amused and pained.

“Why don’t you have the two of them come over and help you pick out a nice shirt?” he suggested. “We’re heading over in an hour. I’ll drive everyone.”

Stiles wasn’t sure how much of his anxiety was anticipation of going to the Hale house, functioning and full of Hales, including a certain specific one, versus the fact that everyone else in the car knew that he was anxious and why. It was a useless, endless cycle that he couldn’t put an end to.

Stiles took a deep breath and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans as his dad pulled up to the house. There were quite a few cars parked out front, and around the side of the house was a grill and multiple tables with chairs. Stiles recognized a couple of the Hales, including Derek’s parents, and his sister Cora and cousin Malia, who’d both been in Stiles’s grade. The boy who Scott was talking to looked familiar - probably Liam - and there was a man in a police uniform who Stiles vaguely recognized as Officer Parrish. Kira was standing with two people who were likely her parents, as well as Scott’s mom.

As they got out of the car, Derek’s mom came over to greet them. She was apparently the pack alpha, because that was a real thing.

“Talia,” the sheriff said, shaking her hand. “Thanks for having us.”

“Of course,” Talia said, shaking each of their hands in turn. “I wanted to thank the four of you for everything you did for this town and my pack. You figured out what happened to us and how to help us. You looked after Derek and his friends. I don’t think anything could be better for our recovery than knowing there are people - and agents specifically - who really want to help protect us and others like us.”

“I notice there are some people here who didn’t previously know about your situation,” the sheriff said.

“We’re letting our newcomers tell their family members if they want to,” Talia said. “And you already know we’re discussing going fully public.”

Stiles was hoping they would; Kate had taken advantage of their privacy to manipulate Derek, and he hadn’t been able to ask for help afterwards either because of it. Stiles knew the situation was complicated, but he and Allison couldn’t publicly promise to protect them if they stayed in hiding.

“We’ll stand with you if you do,” Allison said. “Moving forward, we plan to really work with and for vulnerable groups and people and beings who’ve been unprotected and misunderstood until now.”

“That’s good to hear,” Talia said, looking at once pleased and assessing. “I was told that there were some rules about you not being welcome here, and I want to make it clear that that’s not the case anymore. You’re more than welcome to come watch practices with Scott and Kira and our brand new wolves.”

Looking satisfied, the sheriff clapped a hand to Stiles’s shoulder and pointed toward the house.

“I’m gonna go check in on Parrish,” he said, nodding to Talia before he left.

As he went, he passed Laura, who came over to stand next to her mother. She was tall with dark hair and similar bone structure to Derek, but with softer features and tan freckled skin like their mom. She carried herself like Derek too, shoulders hunched and eyebrows drawn together until her expression cleared into something friendlier once she started talking.

“You must be our rescuers,” she said, and like her mom, she sounded both truly grateful and like she was analyzing them for weaknesses, a demeanor all Hales seemed to possess.

“Nice to meet you,” Allison said, sticking out her hand. “I’m Allison.”

Laura looked at her for a long moment.

“Also known as Kim Possible,” she said. “I remember seeing you on the news. We’re all very lucky it was me who got turned and not Derek, ‘cause I never would have worked with you.”

After a second, Laura grinned and shook Allison’s hand, and Allison smiled back. Danny introduced himself next, and as Laura finally passed that calculating look over Stiles, he let himself acknowledge that he was terrified of her.

“So you’re Stiles,” Laura said, her grip on his hand firm. “Interesting.”

He wasn’t really sure what to make of her tone, and he tried and failed to ignore what he hoped her tone meant - that she’d been told about him. That Derek had talked about him.

“Yep,” Stiles said after an awkward pause, aware that his ears were turning pink. “That’s me. Very interesting.”

He managed to retrieve his hand from Laura’s grasp after what felt like ten minutes, and he cleared his throat and rubbed his hand over his head. He didn’t notice Derek approaching until he was already at Talia’s other side.

Part of Stiles was expecting Derek to look completely different, but he knew that was unrealistic - his family returning wouldn’t have healed all his wounds overnight. Derek still moved like he carried a weight on his shoulders for everyone to see, but as Talia reached up to adjust his collar and rest her hand on his back, he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way Stiles had never seen before. Until recently, he never would have expected to see it.

“Hey, Mom,” Laura said, sudden and a little loud. “Didn’t Cora say she really wanted to meet Allison?”

“Oh, yes, I think she did,” Talia replied, giving Laura an odd look.

“Great!” Laura said. “Lead the way.”

She gestured for Allison to follow Talia back toward the house, and then after an awkward moment she grabbed Danny’s arm and hauled him away too, smiling broadly at Stiles and Derek like she wasn’t being weird. Danny shot a mildly alarmed look over his shoulder at Stiles, who shrugged.

Derek shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, looking deeply uncomfortable. Stiles wasn’t sure if he should address it or not, but he decided to ignore it, ignore Laura, ignore the justifications for her behavior screaming through the back of his mind.

“So your family’s back,” he said after a moment.

“Yeah,” Derek said. “It doesn’t feel real.”

Stiles took a step closer to him, taking in the bags that were still under his eyes, the tension still present in his shoulders. He hadn’t seen Derek in person in what felt like ages, and though it made sense for Derek to still look pretty much the same, though it was tragic that Derek still _looked_ like his life was tragic, part of Stiles was relieved that Derek didn’t feel different. He felt familiar.

“It is real, Derek,” he said, and Derek huffed out a laugh, looking down at the ground.

“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up to them gone,” he said. “Or that some new disaster will happen and take them away again.”

He looked up at Stiles, guilty.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t - you don’t want to hear about how hard it is for me to get back people I lost.”

“It’s okay,” Stiles said. “You have a free pass after that comment I made about your family. Anyway, this is a little weird for me, maybe, but that doesn’t mean I’m not happy that you got them back. Or concerned that you’re having a hard time. You’ve been through a lot, especially lately.”

Derek made a noncommittal noise, not making eye contact again.

“I’m serious,” Stiles said. “You can talk to me about it. Or about - other stuff.”

He wrinkled his nose and looked down at the ground for a second, wishing he’d thought of something more eloquent, or just hadn’t said anything at all, but when he glanced back up, Derek was looking at him very seriously. He took a step closer to Stiles.

“You said you were open to trusting me,” he began quietly, and then he paused, his eyes darting across Stiles’s face.

His obvious nerves made something funny happen in Stiles’s chest that he hoped Derek couldn’t somehow hear or whatever. Maybe Stiles didn’t need to ignore what he was trying to ignore after all.

“I think I said I wasn’t _opposed_ to the concept of trusting you, actually,” Stiles said, smiling and taking another step closer so Derek would know he was teasing.

Derek huffed and rolled his eyes, pulling his hands out of his pockets to cross his arms. They were standing close enough that his arm brushed Stiles’s on the way past.

“I just wanted to let you know,” Derek said, somewhere between annoyed and amused, “that I’m no longer opposed to the concept either.”

Stiles let himself smile up at Derek for a moment, resisting the urge to ruin the moment by saying something annoying, ignoring the fact that he was definitely bright pink. Then, in his pocket, his Ron ringtone went off, and as he pulled out his phone, he finally let himself smirk up at Derek and take a risk.

“That’s really romantic,” he said drily, and before he could stress about Derek’s reaction he held up his phone. “I gotta go save the world or whatever. I’ll text you.”

He turned away and got into his dad’s car, staring down at the phone in his lap. He couldn’t make himself answer it and he couldn’t make himself look out the window. Danny climbed in a moment later, laughing.

“What did you do to Derek?” he asked. “He looks like he’s gonna pass out.”

Stiles finally let himself glance at Derek. He’d turned to watch Stiles get into the car, and the expression on his face was a combination of shocked and fond.

“ _I’m_ gonna pass out,” Stiles said, burying his head in his hands, distressingly aware that Derek could hear them.

“Hey, what did you say to Derek?” Allison asked and she and the sheriff got into the car.

“I don’t know if I want to hear the answer to that,” Stiles’s dad said as he started the engine, and Stiles groaned.

His regular phone buzzed in his pocket as he received a text. It was from Derek.

 _Be careful_.

“Oh my god,” Stiles said. “This is the end of the world.”

“So what?” Allison said, leaning forward to punch him gently on the shoulder. “We can handle it.”

 


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prom pictures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! this fic has more plot than anything else i've ever written and i can't believe it's done and posted. i really really hope you enjoyed it.

Prom pictures happened in Allison’s backyard because her parents were richest and her house was biggest. Stiles was worried about bringing Derek to the Argent house, but Derek said he would be fine. They were meeting at the house, Stiles driving there with his dad and then driving to the school with Derek, before they took a bus to the actual venue.

Stiles was worried, too, about bringing Derek to prom in general. He was a few years older, the public hadn’t had a lot of distance from the whole werewolf announcement yet, and they hadn’t been together for very long and were taking things slow. But waiting for him to arrive, standing in Allison’s backyard with his friends and their dates and parents, he felt a lot more comfortable than he’d expected to.

Stiles leaned against one of the chairs on the patio as his dad talked to Allison’s parents. Nearby, Kira and Scott’s mom were working together to pin Scott’s boutonniere to his suit properly.

“I thought we did this before we left,” Melissa said, and Kira let out an exasperated laugh.

“It keeps sitting crooked,” she said, and Melissa reached up to fix a piece of hair coming loose from Kira’s updo.

Stiles was pretty confident that Kira and Scott were going to break and make out at some point between prom and graduation the following week. He knew, from Scott, that they hadn’t yet, and also that they were going to soon. They were both headed to colleges pretty close to home in the fall, but there was enough change in the air to startle one of them into making a move.

Jackson stood at the edge of the Argents’ patio, and Danny had a tight grip on his hands, trying to pull him onto the grass.

“I’m not getting grass stains on these shoes,” Jackson said. “You can’t make me. Do you know how expensive these shoes are? They’re Hugo Boss.”

“I’m not making you do anything,” Danny said with the tone of someone who’d said those exact words many times. “You’re an autonomous being, Jackson. I’m  _ asking _ you to act like a nice, normal person and take pictures. I have wipes in the car.”

“ _ Wipes _ ,” Jackson scoffed, but he looked heartened by being referred to as a person and let Danny pull him onto the grass after all.

Danny had asked Jackson to prom a week or so earlier after unexpectedly splitting up with his boyfriend, and Jackson had said yes as long as he could get a name-brand tux. Lydia, who had helped Danny cross the finish line on making Jackson fully autonomous, had donated a significant amount of money to his wardrobe fund. The rest of them had pointedly not asked where the money came from.

They, Jackson obviously included, hadn’t figured out yet what he should do in the long-term. Danny could make him a fake identity and he could try to get a normal job or go to college, but that didn’t seem like Jackson’s style. Allison and Lydia had each separately floated the idea of training Jackson, and it was anyone’s guess where he’d end up, morally speaking.

Allison and Lydia were also making their way across the grass, holding up the bottoms of their dresses. For all their agility and training, it looked like walking on grass in heels still wasn’t easy. Allison’s shoulder had finally fully healed and was out of its immobilizer, and Lydia was wearing a sparkly red dress with a huge thigh slit that somehow didn’t clash with her orange hair and pink skin. Together they looked beautiful and intimidating even wobbling across the grass.

“Here,” Allison said once they reached the tree they’d be taking pictures in front of, and she reached up to fix Lydia’s loose curls.

“Oh, did I tell you that Finstock wanted to come take pictures?” Lydia asked, and Allison laughed. “He couldn’t understand why that might not go over well. I nearly locked him in a storage closet to get out of there on time.”

“Honestly,” Allison said, “I think it would go fine if he did show up. And it’d make for some really good pictures.”

“Don’t even joke,” Lydia said, but she smiled and untwisted one of Allison’s dangly earrings.

Allison probably wasn’t joking. After the news about Kate went public, Allison had put all their work associates on probation, come out, and announced that she was dating her nemesis’s apprentice. The public opinion of Kim Possible was fluctuating wildly, but Allison didn’t care. In another week or so, she’d be dropping the name, too. 

The last few months had been a real period of growth for Allison, but less so for Stiles. A part of him felt like he would always be lagging behind her. It wasn’t like he always disliked taking on a supportive role - for Allison, for his dad at home, and even for Derek, as he adjusted and finally dealt with what he’d been through. Stiles was happy that Derek wanted to talk about those things with him.

A hand touched Stiles’s shoulder, and he turned around to see Derek standing there in a suit and bow tie, his hair gelled into something neater than usual.

“Wow,” Stiles said before he could stop himself, and Derek looked away and turned just slightly pink, looking horribly embarrassed but also pleased. Stiles grabbed his hand and squeezed, knowing his ears were turning pink too.

They hadn’t quite managed to get past the stage of things yet where everyone was embarrassed and overwhelmed all the time. Stiles was new to all of it, and Derek had obviously been through some shit, and otherwise hadn’t really dated since he was, like, 14, which barely even counted.

“You’re okay being here?” Stiles asked quietly, and Derek nodded.

“Yeah, I’ve never been here before, so I don’t associate the place with her,” he said easily, and Stiles believed that he was comfortable enough. “I’d kind of like to avoid Allison’s parents though.”

“You have no idea,” Stiles replied. “Actually, her dad’s not awful. Her mom’s terrifying. I’ll protect you.”

Derek smiled, small and real, one hand tucked into his pocket and the other one tangled with Stiles’s. He didn’t seem out of place, and wouldn’t have even if the backyard wasn’t filled with various other supernatural, sci-fi prom dates. It was incredible how normal Derek actually was most of the time. He’d taken some college classes with Laura back in New York over the last few years, and they were planning to start up again at Beacon County Community College in the fall.

Stiles and Danny and Allison had picked a big college about an hour away with a good, diverse science program. It was strange, to be in the same position as most other graduating seniors, in at least one major regard - he knew where he was going and what he was studying, but not where his career would take him after that. He’d been on one path for so long, but now he was considering other options.

Stiles had the opportunity to completely reinvent an industry that few people were even a part of. He could create a new career path, a new job title, figure out what he wanted to do and then do it. Or he could keep being an agent, which was already an amazing job. 

He had a feeling that dropping the Kim and Ron personas was a good time to change the roles they took within their team. He had a feeling that the way to stop feeling like a sidekick was to just step up and say that he wasn’t one anymore.

“Okay, time for pictures,” Melissa said, having finally gotten Scott’s boutonniere to sit correctly.

Stiles headed with Derek over to the tree where his friends had started to gather. He wound up, of course, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with Allison, who grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight for a second.

“What do you think the odds are of us having to leave to fight bad guys in the middle of prom?” Stiles asked her quietly.

“Would it be our prom if that didn’t happen?” Allison replied easily. “We just better not have to leave in the middle of a good song.”

Stiles laughed and wound an arm around Allison and Derek each. He was ready to deal with the weird looks they might get over their prom dates. He was ready to deal with leaving prom early to save the world. He was ready, probably, to talk to the people who mattered most to him about what he might want to do next. 

He felt a little sick and a lot excited not to have everything figured out. Pretty much any path he might walk down seemed like a great one, and he wouldn’t be doing it alone.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at [lydia---branwell](http://lydia---branwell.tumblr.com) but uh i don't really post about teen wolf there so lol


End file.
